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ENGLAND 



WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 



RICHARD GRANT WHITE. 



" For me, with sorrow I embrace my fortune. 
I have some rights of memory in this liingdom, 
Which now to claim my vantage doth invite me. 

Hamlet. 




t JUN -23 188^ 
m.lU.L2h 

Nc>_ ' Of WASHI?^'^, . 



BOSTON: 

HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY. 

Cfjc Miber^ilre prc^^, Camfirttfge. 

1881, 



^> 



Copyright, 1881, 
By RICHARD GRANT WHITE, 

All rights reserved. 




THE LIBRARY 
OF CONGRESS 

WASHINGTOH 



The Riverside Press, Cambridge: 
Stereotyped and Printed by H. 0. Houghton & Co, 



? ? 



To 
CHARLES T. GOSTENHOFER, 

OF BIRKENHEAD, LANOASHIKK, ESQUIRE. 



Mt Dear Gostenhofer: 

I give myself the pleasure of inscribing this book to you, not only in 
recognition of the friendship between us, which began in early youth, and 
which you have constantly strengthened, but because your long residence 
in the United States, your candor, and your wide and generous sympa- 
thies make you, notwithstanding your love for England, which I share 
with you, the most competent person that I know to pronounce both upon 
the merits that it may have and the faults which I can hardly hope that it 

should be without. 

Ever most truly vours, 

R. G. VV. 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER I. 

INTRODUCTORY. 

PAGE 

Occasion of this Book. — Feeling towards England, and its Causes. — 
Presentation of Every-Day English Life. — Literary Men as Com- 
panions and as Curiosities. — A "Yankee's" View of English So- 
ciety, but also the English View 1 

CHAPTER II. 

ENGLISH SKIES. 

Horace's "coelum non animum mutant" true of the English Colonists 
of America. — Approach to British Shores. — Appearance of the 
Heavens. — Ireland. — Anglesea. — First Experience of Philistinism. 
— Difference of Expression between the People in Old and New Eng- 
land. — Its Cause. — Climate. — Changes of Sky. — Indifference to 
Rain. — Useless Sun-Dials. — Eating and Drinking. — Mellowing 
Effect of Climate 13 

CHAPTER III. 

ENGIAND ON THE RAILS. 

Misapprehension and Misrepresentation of National Character. — Eng- 
lishmen Great Travelers. — Mistakes and Causes of Mistakes about 
"Americans " in this Respect. — British Railways, their Excellence 
and Comfort. — Manners of Railwaj' Officials. — A Comparison. — 
People seen at Railway Stations. — An Excited and Indignant 
Beauty. — A Scene. — Railway Vocabu]ar3' Traditional 37 

CHAPTER IV. 

LONDON STREETS. 

Vastness and Sense of Solitude. — Character of Various Quarters. — 
Internal Arrangement of Houses. — Absence of Display in Trading 
Quarters. — A Dealer in Old Pottery. — Trustfulness of Traders. — 
Absence of Sign Boards. — The Cock and Temple Bar. — Temple 
Gardens. — St. James's Park and Pall Mall. — London Omnibuses 
and Conductors. — The Omnibus a Sort of Stage-Coach, and why 
it is so. — Naming Streets. — Beggars. — A hungry unfortunate 
Young Woman . . . . ^ 62 



Vlll CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER V. 

LIVING LN LONDON. 

A West End London Lodging House. — English Joint Worship and 
English Mutton. — A Typical English Housemaid. — A Scene in 
Hyde Park: Lady and Groom. — Covent Garden, and its Dutch 
Auctions. — Seven Dials. — Pye Corner. — London Ignorance of 
London. — Seeking a Celebrity 90 

CHAPTER VI. 

A SUNDAY ON THE THAMES. 

The Sense of Sunday. — Charles I. and his Death. — Cows in St. 
James's Park. — Westminster Abbey. — A Sunday Handbill Dis- 
tributer; Politics and Religion. — Two Fat Philistines. — Ignorance 
again. — A Riverside Musing. — A Jump and its Effect. — St. Paul's. 

— Church-Regidated Eating-Houses. — An Elegant Female Victualler 118 

CHAPTER VII. 

A DAY AT WINDSOR. 

Autumnal Verdure. — A Little Old Town. — Empty Shakespeareanism. 

— A Royal Bait House. — Modern English House-Building. — An 
Eton Boy. — St. George's Hall. — Waterloo Chamber. — Philistine 
Admiration. — An Irate Showman. — View from Windsor Round 
Tower. — An Independent Warder. — An Eton Foundation Scholar. 

— St. Andrew's of Clewer. — Eton Boys, their Games and their Phy- 
sique. — A Little Prig 142 

CHAPTER VIII. 

RUKAL ENGLAND. 

Gradual Absorption of Rural England. — Railways. — Growth of Towns. 

— Beauty of Rural England. — A Peasant's Cottage. — Supper. — 
Farmers and Cottagers. — Farm-Houses and Cottages. — English 
Villages. — Names and Places. — Pocket Money. — Another Cot- 
tage. — Love of Flowers. — Seeking a Cow. — A Stone-Breaker. — 

A Farmer's Wife. — A Country Walk 164 

CHAPTER IX. 

ENGLISH MEN. 

Long-Known Beauty of the Anglo-Saxon Race. — A Mistaken Notion. 

— The English Race in New England. — Extract from a Letter : Com- 
parisons. — The English " Set Up." — A Mother and Daughters. — 

A Typical Yankee. — Superiority of Sex. — Traits of English Men . 191 



CONTENTS. IX 

CHAPTER X. 

ENGLISH WOMEN. 

Distinctive Traits. — Types of Beauty. — Dress. — Intelligence. — 
Tone of Drawing-Room Society. — Domesticity. — Political English 
"Women. — A Brilliant Example. —A High-Bred Female Philistine. 

— Women in Business Positions. — Manners. — The English Wom- 
an's Nature. — Voice and Speech "• 210 

CHAPTER XI. 

ENGLISH MANNERS. 

" A Perfect John Bull." — Insolence in Authority Snubbed. — Exam- 
ple of British Arrogance. — The Result. — Manners and Manner. — 
Genuineness ; Good Faith ; Warm-Heartedness. — Manner to Women. 

— Lack of Social Grace and Tact. — Propriety. — Lower-Class 
People. — A 'Bus Conductor. — Shopmen and Waiters. — Asking 
Alms. — " Thank You." — Influence of Aristocracy. — General Po- 
liteness. — Family Intercourse. — A Roman English Woman. — 
Simplicity of Dress and Manner in English Men. — Dinner and 
Table Talk. — Some Inconsistencies 236 

CHAPTER Xn. 

SOME HABITS OF ENGLISH LIFE. 

Domestic Discipline. — Good Nature and Good Manners. — Knole 
Park. — A Disappointment.— A Firm Porter and a Submissive 
Peer. — Happiness in Poverty. — Hyde Park ; a Mother and Daugh- 
ter. — Way of Walking. — A Pistol Pocket. — Ring- Wearing. — 
Spittoons. — Leisure and Conviviality. — Social Sincerity. — Social 
Distinctions; Going to Court. — English Breakfasts. — An Unpro- 
tected Female. — First Class and Third Class. — A Lady's Blunder 265 

CHAPTER XIII. 

"nobility and GENTRY." 

The Word " Gentleman." — The Thing. — Gentry in England. — Po- 
sition of English Noblemen. — An English "Gentleman's" Nobil- 
ity. — The Various Ranks of Nobility in England, and their Origin, 
etc., etc. — Baronets. — Knights. — Precedence. — Amusing Illus- 
trations. — Middle Classes. — Character of the Peerages . • . .290 

CHAPTER XIV. 

TAURUS CENTAURUS. 

Umbrella and Cab. — Refuges. — The Horse in England. — A Young 
Horsewoman. — The Horse- Worshiping Englishman. — English Rid- 
ing; "the Seat. — Fox-Hunting. — Hare-Coursing. — Fail* Play. — 

. The "Best Man." — Shooting. — Hunting- Women 319 



X CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER XV. 

PARKS AND PALACES. 

Letters Home. — From Twickenham to Hampton Court. — Pictures 
and Portraits. — The Beauties of Hampton Court. — Madame de 
Pompadour. — Walks along the Thames. — Twickenham Ferry. — 
Kew. — Kichmond Park. — " Great Houses." — High-Sounding 
Names. — Silence in Regard to Money. — Confidence. — County 
Peculiarities. — Refuting Slander. —The Sun in England . . . .341 

CHAPTER XVI. 

ENGLISH IN ENGLANt>- 

British English and "American" English. —Influence of an English 
Missionary. — The Letter H : History of its Pronunciation. — 
Words, Phrases, and Peculiar Pronunciations. — The Pulpit and the 
Stage. — Mrs. Siddons. — French in England. — A Sun-ey Hatter . 364 

CHAPTER XVII. 

A CANTEFvBURY PILGRIMAGE. 

The Archbishop of Canterbury. — Origin of his Primacy. — An Old- 
Fashioned Inn. —The Cathedral. — The Crypt. — Henry II. 's Pen- 
ance. — A Verger. — The Norman Staircase. — St. Martin's Church. 

— Harbledown. — Lanfranc's Hospital. — Preparations for a Fair. 

— A Thoughtful Lower-class English Man. — Alone in the Cathe- 
dral. — A Forgotten Preposition . 393 

CHAPTER XVIII. 

JOHN BULL. 

A Mistaken Identity. — A Typical Face. — ' ' John Bull " a Pretender. 

— Philistine Brutality. — Flogging. — Subservience to Wealth and 
Rank. — Grumbling. — Established Social Customs. — Napkins. — 
British "Insularity " . . . 421 

CHAPTER XIX. 

OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE. 

A College Town. — Substantial Prosperity. — Absence of "Enter- 
prise." — Late Morning Hours. — The Bull Inn. — Beauty of Cam- 
bridge. — Trinity College. — The Butterj^ Hatch. — Cambridge Ale. 

— The "River" Cam. — "Hall." — Cambridge Latin. — A Ban- 
quet in the Old Style. — Chapel Service. —Beauty of Oxford — 
The Colleges. — Roj'al Undergraduates. — Taylorian Museum. — 
Undergraduate Politeness. — The Union: a Debate. — Boffin's. — 
Oxford at Night. — Invisible Musicians 438 



CONTENTS. XI 

CHAPTER XX. 

A NATIONAL VICE. 

English " Potting " in the Olden Time. — Free Use of Beer, Wine, and 
Spirits in Modern Days. — Beer Drinking and Drunkenness in the 
Lower Classes. — " Blue Monday." — Consequent Misery. — High- 
Class Drinking in the Last Century. — Modern Drinking among 
High-Class English Women. — Wine Beggars. — " Standing Some- 
thing." — Eeasons for the Use of Stimulating Drinks in England. 

— Signs of Improvement 464 

CHAPTER XXI. 

THE HEAET OF ENGLAND. 

Warwick and Warwickshire. — Counties and Shires. — East Wind. — 
English Kindness and Hospitality. — Traits of Old English Towns. 

— Warwick Castle. — A Female Cicerone. — A Great Portrait. — 
Leicester Hospital. — Warwick Church. — Fulke Greville. — A Sat- 
urday Fair. — A Dutch Auction. — Pig, Boy, and Old Gateway. — 
Guy's Cliff " .489 

CHAPTER XXn. 

A VISIT TO STRATFORD-ON-AVON. 

Neglect of England by the Traveling "Average American." — War- 
wickshire Scenery. — Barford. — Charlecote Church. — Sir Thomas 
Lucy and Shakespeare. — Charlecote. — Intrusive Sight-Seers. — 
Stj-atford. — Disappointment. — Disappearance of Shakespeare's 
Stratford. — Stratford Church. — New Place. — Gainsborough's Por- 
ti'ait of Garrick. — Shakespeare's Father's House. — Making a '• Gen- 
tleman." — The Hathaway Cottage. — Another William Shake- 
speare in Stratford 509 

CHAPTER XXIII. 

IN LONDON AGAIN. 

Home-Like Air of London. — Likeness to Certain Parts of New York. 

— Formation of London Streets. — Oxford Street. — Crosby Hall. 

— Guild Hall. — Gog and Magog. — The Lord Mayor and His 
Coach. — Statues. — The Albert Monument. — Sir Jamsetjee Jee- 
jeebhoj'. — The Eagle Slayer. — St. Saviour's Church. — Tombs of 
Gower, Fletcher, Massinger, and Edmund Shakespeare. — Contrast 
of the Old and the New. — Bolt Court and Dr. Johnson. — Wapping 
Old Stairs. — A Superior Musician. — A Wedding. — A Pew 
Opener. — Funerals. — The Garrick Club Portraits. — An Incon- 
gruity 531 



Xll CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER XXIV. 

KANDOM EECOLLECTIONS. 

By-Ways. — A Pleasant Rencontre. — Hotel Discomfort. — English 
Hospitality again. — South Kensington Museum. — Galileo's Tele- 
scope ; Newton's. — Stephenson's Locomotive Engines. — Gradually 
Contracting Measures. — Freethinking Clergymen. — The Church 
of England. — The Catechism. — Discontent. — Dress of the Lower 
Classes. — A Ruined Reputation. — English Barristei-s and Judges. 
— A Trial. — A Town Crier. — Traits of Speech and Manners. — 
A Hangman's Business Card. — Her Majesty. — Loyaltj'. — Bank- 
rupt Turkey. — British Journalism and Statesmanship 555 

CHAPTER XXV, 

PHILISTIA. 

The Atmosphere of Philistinism. — Its General Difiusion. — Its Nat- 
ure. — Strangeness of It. — A Late Development. — Manifestation 
in Domestic Art and in Architecture. — In Theological Writing. — 
The Church of England. — Examples of Philistinism. — Eminent 
Philistines. — Philistinism a Distinctive Trait. — Greatness and 
Glory of England . . . .■ 577 



ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 



CHAPTER I. 

INTRODUCTORY. 

In the summer of 1876, long rest from work and a 
greater change of air than can be obtained by usual 
summer jaunting were needful for me ; and as I had 
little interest in the Rocky Mountains, which were 
two thousand miles away from any place where my 
kindred had ever been, and a great interest in a land 
beyond the sea, but within ten days' steaming, where 
my forefathers had lived for about eleven hundred 
years, I went to England ; to visit which had been 
one of the great unsatisfied longings of my life. I 
found there even more to interest me than I had 
looked for, although I saw less of the country and of 
my many friends within it than I had hoped to see. 
It was almost inevitable that a man who had written 
about matters much less near to him than this was to 
me should tell the tale of such a journey; and hence 
this book, which, although an honest one, I believe, 
and written in a candid spirit, is truly a labor of love. 

The consideration of the manifold subject thus 
brought before me was not, however, merely a result 
of my visit to England. Of this subject I found my- 
self thinking almost involuntarily, years ago, when- 



2 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

ever it was accidentally presented. Indeed, English 
life and character have long been of such warm and 
close interest to me that my tour in England is rather 
the occasion than the cause of much that I have writ- 
ten about them. To say this is due to myself, if not 
to my readers. 

Mr. Ruskin, in his " Fors Clavigera " (No. 42, 
June, 1874), says to his countrymen, " And yet that 
you do not care for dying Venice is the sign of your 
own ruin ; and that the Americans do not care for 
dying England is only the sign of their inferiority to 
her." How ruinous England may be, and how sure 
a sign of her ruin may be found in her apathy towards 
Venice, I shall not venture the attempt to decide ; but 
as to the latter clause of this condemnation, I oifer 
this book as my protest. What the Oxford Graduate 
who became the Oxford Professor may mean by the 
vague, non-describing term " Americans " I do not 
exactly know ; nor do I believe that, with all his skill 
in word-craft, he could define it in a way that would 
be quite satisfactory even to himself, upon a little 
consideration. This, however, I can presume to say, 
that among Yankees who think about anything but 
the business and the pleasure of their daily life there 
is no such indifference as that which he makes the 
occasion of his reproach. To them England is still 
the motherland, the " Old Home " of their fathers. 
To her they look with a feeling, strong and deep, of 
interest, of affection, almost of reverence, such as they 
have towards no other country in the world ; and it 
is for them as well as to them that I have ventured to 
speak. This feeling in them may be a weak fondness; 
but it is natural, and a natural weakness of which 
they need not be ashamed. It is this verv filial bond 



INTRODUCTORY. 3 

between them and the land of their fathers that has 
made the tone of most Englishmen towards them in 
time past so hard to bear. We all know the bitter- 
ness of a man's heart when he finds that his foes are 
they of his own household. Injustice, misapprehen- 
sion, and misrepresentation on the part of French- 
men and Germans touched us lightly. In them ig- 
norance and pi^ejuclice might be excused, and indeed 
expected. Them we might flout or even pity ; but to 
be reviled by our kindred in our own tongue was 
a sore trial to our patience. The truth was, however, 
that of all peoples with whom we had intercourse the 
English people of Great Britain were the most igno- 
rant of us ; and so as a whole they still remain. And 
strange to say, the very fact that the two peoples 
were essentially the same was the chief cause of their 
mutual misapprehension. Their likeness was so great 
that differences between them which could be made 
the subject of remark were to be found only in those 
trifling points of manners and customs, an unlikeness 
in which, among those of the same family, has ever 
been one of the most irritating causes of aversion. 
This ignorance and this dislike have been fostered 
and kept alive by writers whose interest and whose 
inclination joined in leading them to pander to the 
feeling of a day, rather than to use their pens and 
their opportunities in the interests of truth and of 
kindly feeling. 

With a full knowledge and an often-recurring con- 
sciousness of all this, I went to England. I had got 
beyond — if I may not say above — being affected by 
it in my relations with Englishmen ; and it was 
swept entirely from my mind by the experience of 
my visit. 



4 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN- 

My readers need hardly be told that my recollec- 
tions of that pleasant sojourn include much with 
which I should not think of wearying them. It is 
no diary, no expanded note-book, that I have set be- 
fore them. Indeed, I made hardly any notes when 
I was in England ; all my memorandums being con- 
tained in two tiny books which would go into my 
waistcoat pocket, and having been hastily scrawled 
as I was walking or riding. My purpose has been to 
put England and English folk and English life be- 
fore my readers just as I saw them. To do this, it 
was not necessary to write either an itinerary or an 
account of all my personal exjDeriences, including the 
valuable information that I daily rose and break- 
fasted and walked, or rode and dined and slept, well 
or ill as the case might be. But of that experience 
I have here recorded only such incidents and facts 
as I thought characteristic. I have described such 
persons and such conditions of life as seemed, not, 
be it remarked, strange, striking, or amusing, but 
fairly representative of the country and the people. 
Because of a contrary practice, consequent upon a 
desire to satisfy a craving for novelty, books of travels 
are too often either caricatures of the people whom 
they profess to describe, or correct descriptions of 
persons .as strange and incidents almost as unusual 
to the native inhabitant as to the foreigner. This is 
notably the case with books of travel in the United 
States, and also, but in a less degree, in those which 
have described England to " Americans." The peo- 
ple of the two countries are, or were until a few 
years ago, so nearly the same people, developing them- 
selves under different forms of government and phys- 
ical surroundings, that writing travelers, especially 



INTRODUCTORY. 5 

those from the motherland, have felt, it would seem, 
as if they must be sharply on the lookout for some- 
thing strikingly characteristic. Tourists have gone 
about in both countries seizing eagerly upon the pe- 
culiar, the strange, the startling ; and this they have 
set forth as portraiture. Thus, also, illustrators with 
the pencil have done ; and not only in each other's 
country, but each in his own. The result of all 
this wonder-seeking is distortion, confusion, misap- 
prehension, — ignorance instead of knowledge, avei'- 
sion instead of liking. 

I i-emember that on a drive, one pleasant afternoon, 
with a lady, through a gently rolling country near 
the eastern shore of England, where she was at home, 
and where there were fewer hedges and old timber 
houses than I saw in other shires, I was struck by 
the likeness of the land to that of the more level 
parts of New England, and spoke of it to my com- 
panion ; and I remember the little tone of disap- 
pointment in her reply : " Th.en there was no use of 
your coming." It was in simple kindness that she 
was disappointed. She hoped to show me something 
new. She had it on her mind that I had gone forth, 
like Lord Bateman, " strange countries for to see ; " 
and therefore she felt a little sense of short-coming 
in herself, and even in her country, that she could 
not show me something quite novel. But there was 
use in my coming ; and there would have been had 
I found even more likeness than I did find between 
what I saw and what I had left behind me. I went 
to England not to see shows, nor to hunt up things 
new and strange, but to see it and its people as they 
are, to look upon them single-eyed as nearly as a 
man may look without a tinge of warm-hued feeling 



6 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

upon the home of his fathers and upon his own kin- 
dred. I wished to know England as it is, so far as I 
could learn that in the time that I had for the study 
and with my opportunities. If I saw that there could 
be no disappointment : like this or unlike the other, 
what matter ? I did not go to England as most Eng- 
lishmen come to " America," where their object seems 
to be to see a Niagara, or to shoot on the prairies the 
bisons or the catamounts that they fail to find on Bos- 
ton Common or in Central Park. 

Nevertheless, the truth is that I passed my whole 
time there, with the exception of that which was 
darkened and dampened by two or three fogs, in a 
succession of varying pleasures, the greatest of which 
in degree and in extent was my intercourse — in the 
old and better sense of the word, my conversation — 
with the people into whose company I was thrown. 
These were of all ranks and conditions in life ; and 
they were most of them average representatives of 
the classes to which they severally belonged. I found 
them, with some exceptions, very interesting, even 
when they were not such persons as I would have 
chosen for daily companionship. Moreover, notwith- 
standing the effect of railways, cheap newspapers, 
and cheap postage, England is not yet without char- 
acter in its society, nor without peculiar characters 
who give zest and diversity to the intercourse of 
every-day life. There are queer people yet in Eng- 
land. He who will go about the country in an easy, 
familiar way, and keep his eyes open, may hope to. 
find them, — as odd, some of them, " as Dick's hat- 
band ; " and even if the people that he sees are them- 
selves not very much out of the common, he will yet 
be likely to meet with incidents, and even to become 



INTRODUCTORY. 7 

a part of incidents, that will be both amusing and 
instructive, if he be but ready to enter into the spirit 
of what is going on around him. 

Not unmindful of all the sources of confusion and 
misapprehension upon which I have just remarked, 
and yet doing only what seemed to me natural and 
right, I have been content to concern myself with 
that which is truly characteristic. Now the charac- 
teristic is always the commonplace. True generally, 
this is particularly true of peoples and countries. In 
my descriptions of England, therefore, I have told 
only what almost any man might see there on almost 
any day, — only what I believe no Englishman would 
regard as strange. For it is these every-day occur- 
rences, these stable, homely facts, these commonplaces 
of life, that show what a people, what a country is, 
— what all the influences, political, moral, and tellu- 
ric, that have been at work there for centuries have 
produced. And if, because I have not sought out the 
strange, the striking, and the grotesque, my recollec- 
tions should lack interest, I pray my readers to re- 
member that I have been dull in the interests of 
truth. 

It may be well, also, that I should say that I saw 
and have written from a Yankee's point of view, ap- 
plying the term Yankee necessarily to the descend- 
ants of those to whom it was originally and peculiarly 
applied, in whatever part of the country they may 
now dwell. When I speak of my countrymen I mean 
only those whose families were here at the time of the 
Revolution, who alone can be the true examples and 
representatives of the results of the social, political, 
and physical forces which have been in operation 
here for two centuries and a half. With others, who 



8 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

are spoken of and who speak of themselves as " Amer- 
icans," and who are the product of emigration during 
the last thirty or forty years, I do not here concern 
myself, however respectable, wealthy, or politically 
influential they may have become (and some of them 
are very respectable, very wealthy, and politically 
very influential), or however tenacious they may be 
(and they are apt to be very tenacious) of their 
" American " status. But to me, from my present 
point of view, they are no more than if they had re- 
mained at home, and had become respectable, wealthy, 
and politically influential there. Indeed, they are 
rather less. How could it be otherwise ? 

In regard to England, I have spoken freely as to 
myself, but with reserve as to others, of the pleasure 
of my life there during my first visit, — my only one. 
I have been sufficiently cautious, I hope, in my refer- 
ences to my personal experience, not to trespass upon 
privacy, nor to abuse hospitality. What I mean by 
this phrase no Yankee who is likely to read this book 
needs to be told ; but if the language of a very widely- 
known war correspondent of a very superior London 
newspaper may be taken as evidence, an explanation 
may be necessary to some of his countrymen. Hav- 
ing been accused of violating hospitality in regard to 
" the States,'' he says that the charge is untrue, be- 
cause he "gave as many dinners as he received." It 
was with some surprise that I read this expression of 
tlie writer's apprehension of the duties and relations 
of hospitality. Apart from the business-like, debt- 
and-credit view taken of the matter, it was amazing 
that the writer did not see that the occasion of the re- 
proach to wbich he referred was an alleged violation 
of that privacy and confidence which are implicit in 



INTRODUCTORY. 9 

the social intercourse of gentlemen, and that a man 
may abuse hospitality by giving improper and annoy- 
ing publicity to matters spoken of at his own table, 
as well as if they were spoken of at another at which 
he "was a guest. It is, however, unreasonable to ex- 
pect that such implicit and purely sentimental obli- 
gations should be felt and acted upon by all men, 
even when they are able correspondents of superior 
newspapers. At any rate, this is the way in which I 
have felt the obligations of hospitality imperative on 
me, in relation to my friends in England no less than 
to those at home. It has of course been necessary 
for me to refer to individuals ; and in writing of a 
country in which individuals are of different ranks 
it would have been an inept and confusing affectation 
to ignore them ; but I believe that I have told my 
story in a way to which my friends, although they 
may recognize themselves in my pages, will make no 
objection, and which I am sure will conceal their 
identity from strangers. 

Some expectation was expressed, during the serial 
publication of these chapters, that parts of them 
would be occupied by descriptions of distinguished 
literary people in England. That they are wholly 
lacking in this element of popular interest is not ac- 
cidental, nor indeed unintentional. Having never 
made any special effort to meet literary people at 
home, I did not do so while I was in England. It 
would be difficult to prove, either by demonstration 
or by experience, that the fact that a man has the 
faculty of thinking well and writing agreeably makes 
him necessarily a pleasant companion. He may be 
so ; and then he is likely to be the more so for his 
faculty of thinking ; but the chances that he may be 



10 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

ill-natured or ill-bred, or at least uncompanionable, 
are quite as great as if his Yocation were law, or 
farming, or fiddle-making. Indeed, I know one fid- 
dle-maker, an uneducated artisan, who is found by 
some of the best bred and most intelligent men that 
I know much more companionable than most of 
those whom they meet in their own society. It 
seems to me an altogether erroneous notion, this as- 
sumption that similarity in occupation, or admira- 
tion on one side, must produce liking in personal in- 
tercourse. It was by no means certain, because of 
my delight in "• Sartor Resartus " and in " In Memo- 
riam," that I should personally like the writers of 
those books ; and it was very much more than un- 
certain whether they would like me. Therefore, as 
I did not happen to meet them at the houses of any 
of my friends, I did not visit them, nor others of 
their order, whom I need not name. For as to go- 
ing to see them as shows, that I should not have 
presumed to do, even if I had had such an inclina- 
tion. ^ 

I thought myself very fortunate in the way in 
which I saw England and the life there ; for it was 
such an informal, matter-of-course, untourist-like 
way. Of the kindness that was shown me there, 
I shall say no more than I have said from time to 

1 Since the writing of tbis passage the author of Sartor Resartus has 
passed away, and his Reminiscences have been published. The latter con- 
firm nie in the opinion expressed above. Their writer, although not the 
wise and profound thinker that he deemed himself, was the greatest artist 
in words that this century has seen; and he gave to thousands, of whom 
I was one, more pleasure than thej' received from any other book-maker 
of his day. But he has revealed himself as one of those eminent persons 
whom I should prefer to know onl}' through the protecting medium of some 
convenient Boswell: — albeit the invention of Boswellism and the elevation 
of it into a vocation is one of the literary nuisances and social afflictions 
of the last hundred j'ears. 



INTKODUCTORY. 11 

time, as occasion suggested. I can never cease to 
cherish its remembrance ; and of this kindness no 
small part was that which made me at home in Eng- 
lish houses. Indeed, I was hardly a stranger in any 
one in which I had the pleasure of being received ; 
for, with three exceptions, I visited no one whom I 
had not had the like pleasure of receiving under my 
own roof ; nor was I able to enter half the houses 
where I knew that for years welcome had awaited 
me. Moreover, I had the advantage of seeing Eng- 
land from two points of view, — that of a visiting 
stranger and that of one who is at home. Accus- 
tomed to be mistaken by my British kinsmen in the 
United States and Canada for an Englishman of 
British birth, I found the mistake still more com- 
mon in Old England itself. There, by all who did 
not know me, it was quietly assumed as a matter of 
course that I was born on the soil ; and as all who 
did know me knew to the contrary, I did not travel 
by rail or afoot with the announcement that I was 
a Yankee pasted on my hat ; nor in my casual inter- 
course with strangers did I make the needless dec- 
laration. Therefore, as I went about a great deal 
alone from choice, and as, if I went by a highway, 
I often came back through a by-way, I saw English- 
men both as they appear to each other and as they 
appear to strangers. Under both aspects they com- 
manded my respect and won my liking. Indeed, I 
must say of my sojourn in England, having both the 
people and the country in mind, that never that I 
can remember in my existence since I was a patch of 
protoplasm did I find it so easy to harmonize with 
the environment. Never was I, a Yankee of eight 
generations on both sides, so much at ease in mind 



12 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

and body, never, in one Englisli word, so much at 
home, as I was in England. 

My reader now knows my mood and my purpose 
in the writing of this book. It is not properly a 
book of travel, but the story of a semi-sentimental, 
semi-critical journey through various parts of Eng- 
land, in which what the writer thought and felt is 
told quite as much as what he saw. Whoever does 
not care to read such a book will do well to close this 
one here, and go no further. 



CHAPTER II. 

ENGLISH SKIES. 

When" Horace wrote that they who cross the sea 
change their skies, but not their natures, he uttered 
a truth the full meaning and force of which is too 
little regarded bj^ those who are ready to find men 
of the same race differing essentially because they 
live apart in different countries. True, the sea that 
Horace had in inind was but the Adriatic, or at the 
most the Mediterranean. For it should always be 
remembered that to the ancients lakes were seas, 
and that " the sea " was the Mediterranean ; a voyage 
upon which to Greece, mostly within sight of land, 
was probably the poet's only knowledge of those 
terrors of navigation which, with denunciations of its 
inventor, he uttered in his ode on the departure of 
Virgil for Athens. The exclamation of the Psalmist 
— " The floods have lifted up their voice ; the floods 
lift up their waves. The Lord on high is mightier 
than the noise of many waters ; yea, than the mighty 
waves of the sea " — had probably its inspiration in a 
squaU- upon the shores of the Levant, or in a tempest 
in the shallows of Gennesareth. So little can we 
measure the occasion by the expression which it re- 
ceives from a poet. He tells us, not what the thing 
was, but what it seemed to him, what feeling it 
awoke in him ; and what is really measured is his 
capacity of emotion and of its utterance ; and even 



14 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

that is gauged by our capacity of apprehension and 
of sympathy. 

The change of sky — I refer now to the visible 
heavens — made by passing from New England to 
Old England was very great. Upon its degree of 
physiological effect I shall remark hereafter. I am 
here •concerned merely with its physical aspects. As, 
on my outward voyage, we neared land, and were on 
the lookout for the first sight of it, my attention was 
immediately attracted by the sky. Without the evi- 
dence of the ship's log, it seemed to me that I should 
have had no doubt that near by us there was another 
land than that from which I had come : certainly, 
above us there was another heaven. 

It was in the afternoon of a fine summer day, and 
the outlook over the calm water was beautiful, with 
a radiance softly bright ; but those were not the 
clouds of the summer skies that I had left behind 
me. There were three layers of them, and well there 
might have been ; for the lowest were so low that it 
seemed as if our masts must tear them asunder if we 
should pass beneath them, and the highest were soar- 
ing in the empyrean. The former, however, were not 
heavy ; on the contrary, they seemed to be of the 
lightest texture ; and they stretched far away in 
long, low lines that could not yet be called bars, — 
not only were they so large, but their outlines were 
so soft and undefined. Clouds so formed — clouds 
which a meteorologist would probably pronounce to 
be of the same kind — I had seen above the bay of 
New York, and over the shores of Long Island and 
New England ; but they were high, so high that dis- 
tance made them small ; their forms were sharply de- 
fined ; and when the sun was above the horizon, as it 



ENGLISH SKIES. 15 

was now, or sinking gradually below it, they blazed 
in crimson and gold, whereas these were softly illu- 
mined with a mellow, grayish light. They seemed 
too unsubstantial to reflect the rays that fell upon 
them, and to need, and to absorb and retain as for 
their own use, all the brightness that the sun be- 
stowed. 

Far above these soared others, brighter, silvery, 
and fleecy ; and yet again above the latter, but not 
apparently so far, were others, shaped in radiating 
curves. These layers, indeed, I had seen in west- 
ern skies, generally moving in contrary motion ; but 
the effect was not at all like that which now attracted 
my admiring attention. The difference appeared to 
be caused first by the lowness of the first layer, then 
by the great distance between this layer and the one 
next above it, and finally by the very perceptible and 
almost palpable nature of that vast intervening space. 
It was not mere space, mere distance. My sight 
seemed to pass through something that enabled me 
to measure this vast interval by gradation. And in- 
deed so it was ; for even at that great height the at- 
mosphere was filled with a continuous vapor, which, 
although so thin as to be imperceptible, was yet of 
consistence enough to modify the light from the set- 
ting sun as the rays passed through its immensity. 
The skyey intervals were not so impalpable, so color- 
less, and therefore so immeasurable as they are in 
" America." 

As we neared the land great headlands came to 
meet us, stepping out into the sea, and bearing some- 
times these long, low clouds upon their fronts. The 
day was smiling ; and this seemed a gigantic sort of 
welcome that under lowering skies might have been 



16 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

a more gigantic defiance. And then at once I felt as 
I never before had felt the significance of the first 
lines of that splendid stanza in the most splendid of 
modern lyric poems, — 

"Britannia needs no bulwarks, 
No towers along the steep." 

With my glass, I saw upon the Irish side one or two 
little buildings, which proved to be lookouts and 
places for beacons, built at the time of the expected 
Spanish invasion, and one of those round towers 
which are of such remote antiquity and mysterious 
purpose that the most learned and sagacious antiqua- 
ries have failed to evolve an accepted theory as to 
their origin. Thus, even long before I touched the 
shore, was I made to feel the difference which the 
powers of nature and the hand of man had made be- 
tween the land which I had left and the land to which 
I had come. 

As we steamed on, and came within easy eye-sight 
of the land, the rocky height of the Irish coast im- 
pressed me, and the bright rich green of the surface 
of the country, as it stretched o££ into the distance. 
The island looked like a great stone set in the ocean 
jewel- wise, the top of which had been covered with 
a thin coating of green enamel. Soon we were near 
enough to see the waves dashing against the sides of 
these cliffs, which were so high that the ocean swell 
seemed but to plash playfully about their feet. And 
then I felt as I had never felt before the meaning of 
the lines, and saw as I had never seen before, in my 
flat-shored home, the scene of the lines, — 

' ' Break, break, break, 
On thy cold gray stones, sea." 

The position of the speaker I had imagined, — ^upon 



ENGLISH SKIES. 17 

a height looking clown upon the sea ; but here it was 
before me : — those, or such, were the heights and 
crags, and there below was the bay. 

When, after leaving Queenstown, we were well up 
the Channel, we were at times near enough to the 
eastern shore to see the surpassing beauty of the 
country : green field and darker "wood, villages, farm- 
steads, country-seats, churches, castles, so uninten- 
tionally disposed by the hands of man and of nature 
working together that what was designed for conven- 
ience or made for use blended into a landscape of 
enchanting variety. And here I saw constantly 
something, a little thing, that delighted my eye, and 
I may almost say gladdened my heart, — windmills. 
There was a gentle breeze blowing, and these faith- 
ful servants of man for ages past were working away 
with that cheerful diligence which always marks 
their labors, and has always made me respect and 
like and almost love them, and feel a kind of sym- 
pathy with the poor dumb, willing things when a 
calm reduced them to idleness, which yet after all 
was well-earned rest. In my boyhood, there were 
t^o in sight from the Batteiy, on the Brooklyn side 
of the bay, and they were not far from my father's 
house ; but the places where they stood are now cov- 
ered by a howling wilderness of bricks and mortar, 
and the windmill seems to have disappeared from the 
land. At least, I have not seen one anywhere for 
twenty years and more ; and with them the tide-mill 
seems to have gone also. In England, although it is 
the country of coal and iron and the steam-engine, I 
found them more or less wherever I went, giving life 
to the landscape, and standing, like a link of develop- 
ment, between man and unmitigated nature. 



18 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

Off Anglesea I made my fii-st acquaintance with 
that limited knowledge of manifest things on the 
part of the British Philistine which I afterwards 
found to be one of his distinctive traits of character. 
My fellow-passengers were almost wholly Britons, 
and they had assumed as a matter of course that 
I was one of them. But there was one difference 
between us : they had all been travelers, and had 
crossed the ocean more than once, some of them 
many times, while this was my -first approach to the 
shores to which they had often returned. As a knot 
of us stood looking over the starboard quarter, our at- 
tention was attracted by a somewhat imposing struct- 
ure set far out into the water. I waited to hear 
what would be said about it. Presently one of my 
companions observed it, and asked what it was. 
Then there was a little discussion ; and to my sur- 
prise, I may say to my amazement, no one knew, or 
seemed able to conjecture, at what we were looking. 
After a little reserve, I said that I thought it was 
Holyhead, — a suggestion which was received with 
favor, and then with general acquiescence. Now my 
knowledge was due to no sagacity or study ; but to 
the fact that, before the days of the electric telegraph 
and of fleets of commercial steamers, my father's 
counting-house was in South Street, where the steep- 
roofed old building still stands, and that on Saturdays 
I was a frequent and not unwelcome visitor on board 
the ships that lay at the ^wharves before his win- 
dows. Over the companion-ways into the cabins I 
saw painted rows of little flags, with the legend 
" Holyhead signals ; " and with a boy's inquisitive- 
ness I asked a captain what that meant. His an- 
swer I need hardly give. Those were the signals 



ENGLISH SKIES. 19 

which each ship hoisted when she came in sight of 
Holyhead light-house and lookout station, whence the 
vessel was announced, by semaphore telegraph, in 
Liverpool. Therefore, knowing where we were in the 
Channel, it seemed plain enough that that was Holy- 
head. But there was a little crowd of my British 
cousins, travelers and commercial persons, who had 
passed the place again and again, and who did not 
know what it was ! I held my tongue ; but, like a 
wiser animal than I am, I kept up a great thinking. 

When I landed, one of the very few differences 
that I observed between the people whom I had left 
and those among whom I had come was a calmer 
and more placid expression of countenance. This in 
the descending scale of intelligence became a stolid 
look, the outward sign of mental sluggishness. But, 
higher or lower, in degree or in kind there it was, — 
placidity instead of a look of intentness and anxiety. 
Now, to suppose that this difference is caused by less 
thoughtfulness, less real anxiety, less laboriousness, 
on the part of the Englishman is to draw a conclu- 
sion directly in face of the facts. The toil and strug- 
gle of life is harder in England than it is here : poor 
men are more driven by necessity ; rich men think 
more ; among all classes, except the frivolous part of 
the aristocracy (not a large class), there is more men- 
tal strain, more real anxiety, than we know here, 
where all the material conditions of life are easier, 
and where there is less care for political and social 
matters. Why, then, this difference of look ? I am 
inclined to think that it is due, in some measure, to 
difference of climate, — not to such effect of climate 
upon organization as makes a difference in the phys- 
ical man, but to a result of climate which is almost 



20 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

mechanical, and which operates directly upon each 
individual. Briefly, I think that an expression of 
anxiety is given to the " American " face by an effort 
to resist the irritating effect of our sun and wind. 
Watch the people as they pass you on a bright, windy 
day, and you wnll see that their brows are contracted, 
their eyes half closed, and their faces set to resist the 
glare of the sun and the flare of the wind ; and be- 
sides, in winter they are stung with cold, in summer 
scorched with heat. For some three hundred days 
of the three hundred and sixty-five they undergo this 
irritation, and brace themselves to meet it. Now, a 
scowling brow, half-closed eyes, and a set face unite 
to make an anxious, disturbed, struggling expres- 
sion of countenance, although the wearer may be not 
really anxious, disturbed, and struggling. By the 
experience of years this look becomes more or less 
fixed in the majority of " American " faces. 

In England, on the contrary, there is compara- 
tively no glare of the sun, and comparatively little 
wind. The former assertion will be received without 
question by those who have been in both countries ; 
but the latter may be doubted, and may be regarded 
as strange, coming from a man who has to confess 
that, before he had been on English land forty-eight 
hours, he was almost blown bodily off Chester walls, 
and came near being wrecked in the Mersey. In 
fact, there are not unfrequently in England wind 
storms of a severity which, if not unknown, is very 
rare in the United States or in Canada. We have 
records of such storms in England in the past ; we 
read announcements of them at the present day. I 
had experience of one there more severe than any 
that I remember here, and heard little or nothing 



ENGLISH SKIES. 21 

said about it. But in England, when a storm is 
over, the wind goes down. Here, on the contrary, 
our " clearing up " after a storm is effected by the 
setting in of a northwest wind, against which it is at 
first toilsome to walk, and which sometimes continues 
to blow out of a cloudless sky for days, with a vir- 
ulence quite fiendish. Because it does not rain or 
snow, people call the weather fuie, and delude them- 
selves with the notion that the wind is " bracing ; " 
but nevertheless they go about with scowling brows, 
watery eyes, and set faces, as they brace themselves 
up to endure it. On my return, this wind met me 
nearly two hundred miles at sea. It was something 
the like of which I had not felt once on the eastern 
side of the Atlantic. The air was as clear as a dia- 
mond ; the sky was as blue as sapphire and as hard 
as steel ; the moon, about fifty thousand miles higher 
than it was in England, blazed with a cold, cheei'less 
light ; life seemed made up of bright points ; and the 
wind blew from the northwest, not tempestuously or 
in gusts, but with a steady, overbearing persistence 
for which nothing in nature affords any simile : it is 
itself alone. I knew that I was near home. There 
is nothing of this kind in England. Not only did I 
not find it in my brief experience, but I never heard 
of it, nor of it is there any record. The absence 
of it there and the presence of it here may, I think, 
be reasonably regarded as a very important influ- 
ence in the fashioning the facial habit of the peo- 
ple of the two countries. All the more does this 
seem probable because I have observed that " Amer- 
icans " who reside in England for- a few years gen- 
erally lose, in a great measure, if not entirely, the 
look in question, and on their return to their own 



22 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

shores soon acquire it again. It need hardly be said 
that there are numerous exceptions to these remarks 
in both countries. 

To speak of the difference between the climate of 
England and the climate of the United States is as 
reasonable as it would be to speak of any difference 
between England, on the one hand, and Europe, Asia, 
or Africa, on the other. England is an isolated terri- 
tory, — the southern half of an island, — and is about 
as large as the State of Virginia, or as the States of 
New York and New Jersey together ; while the United 
States cover the greater third of a continent, stretch- 
ing from ocean to ocean, and almost from the arctic 
regions to the tropics. England may be properly 
compared only with such several parts of the United 
States as are homogeneous in soil and climate. The 
difference between the climates, or rather the atmos- 
pheric conditions, of Old England and of New Eng- 
land, for example, or of the Middle States, is of 
course due, very largely, to the greater dampness of 
the former. Careful records of observations, extend- 
ing through twenty-three years, show that rain falls 
in the valley of the Thames, on an average, one hun- 
dred and seventy-eight days in the year ; that is, on 
nearly one half of the three hundred and sixty-five. 
Contrary to general supposition, the wettest month 
is July; and the wettest season is autumn, and not 
winter, as is generally believed. Spring is the least 
wet, winter comes next in rainfall and fog, summer 
next, and autumn stands highest. In this respect, 
autumn is to winter as 7.4 to 5.8. But I found rain 
in England to be a very different thing from rain in 
New England or in New York. With us it rarely 
rains but it pours ; and excepting a few light show- 



ENGLISH SKIES. 23 

ers in May, all our rainfalls are more or less floods 
from the sky, and are accompanied by storms, — 
storms of thunder and wind in summer, violent v/inds 
from the northeast in autumn and winter. This is 
so much the case that loose speakers among us say that 
it is storming, when they mean merely that it is rain- 
ing; applying storm to a May shower as to a Novem- 
ber gale. Now in England rain is generally a much 
milder dispensation of moisture. It will rain there 
steadily for hours together, a fine, softly-dropping 
rain, without wind enough to shake a rose-bush. 
Such rain is almost unjgipwniii '^America.'' Having ef««^', 
often observed our rains for purposes of comparison, 
I find that about five minutes is the longest duration 
of such fine, light rain as I have seen continue in 
England for five hours, without either much increase 
or much diminution, and without any appreciable 
wind. This is why Portia says that mercy " drop- 
peth as the gentle rain from heaven." We in Amei-- 
ica rarely see such rain as Shakespeare had in mind 
when he wrote those lines. 

Although the rain falls thus gently, the heavens 
are very black. The earth is darkened by a murky 
canopy. It is gloomier than it is with us even when 
we have one of our three days' northeasters, or one 
of our blackest thunder-storms. The clouds are of a 
dirty, grimy hue and substance, and seem not to be 
mere condensing vapor, but sloughs in mid-air. Look- 
ing at them, you would suppose that they would foul 
the houses, the streets, and the fields, instead of wash- 
ing them. The sight of them gives new force to Mi- 
randa's description : — 

" The sky, it seems, would pour down stinking pitch." 

Fully to understand what that means, one must wake 



24 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

up, as Shakespeare often had waked, to an autumn 
rain in London. 

The reason of this seemed to me that the clouds 
lie so low. With us, even in a copious rain, the 
clouds are so high that the drops strike smartly as 
they come down, and we can look up to the lofty 
vapor level from which they fall. But in England 
the rain comes only from a little distance above the 
tops of the trees and the houses. (I am speaking not 
only of showers, but of steady rains.) Even when it 
does not rain and is not foggy the tops of the not lofty 
pinnacles of Westminster Abbey are sometimes hidden 
in mist ; and once from the Thames I saw a gold- 
lined cloud descend upon the Parliament houses, as if 
to cast a royal robe around the Victoria Tower. 

The changes of the sky, too, are sudden, although 
without violence. You will wake to find a steadily 
falling rain. The heavens will be of an impenetra- 
ble dun color; or rather, thei'e will be no heavens, 
the very earth seeming to be wrapped around with a 
cloud of thick darkness, distilling water. You will 
naturally think that such a thick and settled mass 
can be dispersed and changed only by some great 
commotion of the elements. As you look out — no 
pleasant occupation — at long intervals, your judg- 
ment is confirmed. There is the same steady distilla- 
tion of water out of the same darkness. Something, 
a book, or a newspaper, or a thought of faces far 
away, absorbs your attention, and suddenly there is a 
gleam of light. You look up ; the clouds are breaking 
away, and before you can change your dress and get 
out the day is a beauty smiling through tears, and all 
the earth seems glad again. But you cannot count 
upon the continuance of this even for an hour. With 



ENGLISH SKIES. 25 

US, if the wind changes and the clouds break, they are 
scattered, driyen out of sight for days. Not so in 
England. Your bright sky there may be obscured in 
five minutes, and in less than five minutes more, if 
you are sensitive to damp, you will need an umbrella. 
This is what is meant in English literature by the 
changeability of the climate ; not such sudden jumps 
from hot to cold and from cold to hot as those which 
we have to undergo. And again, in this variability 
of the heavens, I found an illustration of a passage in 
Shakespeare, that in King Henry VIIL, where the 
doomed Buckingham says, — 

" My life is spaiin'd akeady : 
I am the shadow of poor Buckingham, 
Whose figure even this instant cloud puts on, 
By darkening my clear sun." 

The passage at best is marred with the effects of the 
manifestly hasty composition of this play ; but the 
instant cloud darkening the clear sun is a simile — 
yet not a simile, for it is the glory of Shakespeare's 
style that he rarely wrote in set similes — that has an 
illustrative power in England which is given to it by 
no corresponding phenomenon in " America." 

These passages are no after-thoughts with me, cu- 
riously sought out for the purpose of giving interest 
to my descriptions. The fitness of thing to thought 
was so exact and incisive that the latter came to me 
instantly as I was observing the phenomenon. 

Rain is not looked upon in England, as it is with 
us, as a bai-rier to the open air, unless, as an Irishman 
might say, the open air is taken in a close carriage. 
Indeed, were it so regarded, the English people more 
than any other would live an indoor life, instead of 
being the most open-air loving of all Northern nations. 



26 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

Far the extravagant joke about the English weather, 
that on a fine day it is like looking up a chimney, 
and on a fonl day like looking down, is more than 
set off by the truth of Charles II. 's sober saying, that 
the climate of England tempts a man more into the 
open air than any other. It is very rarely, I sliould 
think, that the weather in England is for many hours 
together so forbidding that a healthy man, not too 
dainty as to his dress, would be kept indoors, and 
lose by it invigorating exercise. It is not too warm 
in summer, nor too cold in winter ; it is never too 
hot and dry, and, notwithstanding the frequent rains, 
it is rarely too wet. The mean temperature of the 
year is about fifty degrees ; the mean temperature 
of the hottest month, July, only sixty- three degrees ; 
and it is only on very exceptional days, in very ex- 
ceptional years, that the mercury rises above eighty 
degrees, or falls below twenty degrees, the mean tem- 
perature of the coldest month, January, being thirty- 
five degrees. A comparison of these temperatures 
with those which we are called upon to bear in our_ 
long summers and in our longer winters shows the 
advantage which the people of England have over us 
in respect to out-door exercise. We cannot walk or 
ride as they do. During no small part of our year 
physical exertion in the open air is painful rather 
than pleasureful, injurious rather than beneficial. It 
is only in autumn that we can find health and en- 
joyment out of doors. Between the middle of Sep- 
tember and the middle of December "we maj enjoy a 
mellow air and what is left of the verdure in our 
parched landscape ; but at that season we strangely 
leave the country, whither we go in the blinding, 
blazing summer, when walking or driving, except in 



ENGLISH SKIES, 27 

the evening, is a fitting diversion only for salaman- 
ders. 

It is not, however, only men in England who are 
not kept within doors by rain from their business, or 
their pleasure, or their mere daily exercise, English 
ladies, as is generally known, take open-air exercise 
much more freely and regularly than women in the 
same condition of life in most other countries. But 
it is not so well known, I believe, how ready they are 
to brave the rain, or rather to take it quietly, with- 
out braving, as a little inconvenience not to be 
thought of within certain bounds. At first, I was 
surprised to see, both in London and in the country, 
ladies walking about in rain, coming out into rain, 
which would have caused an " American " woman of 
like condition to house herself, or if caught in it, and 
not kept out by sheer necessity, to make for shelter 
and for home. And not uitfrequently I saw them do- 
ing thus umbx'ellaless. In England umbrellas would 
seem to be a necessity of daily life ; but, according to 
my observation, they are much more generally carried 
by men than by women. In walking through the 
Crescent in Regent Street on a wet morning, I have 
met half a dozen women, lady-like in appearance, ex- 
posing themselves, and what is more their bonnets, 
without protection to the fine, drizzling rain with an 
air of the utmost unconcern. 

I walked, one morning, from Canterbury to the 
neighboring village of Harbledown, some three miles, 
in a rain that, notwithstanding my umbrella, wet me 
pretty well from the hips down. On my way I met, 
or overtook, men, women, and children, but only one 
of them had an umbrella, and that one was — of all 
creatures — a butcher's boy ! Just at the edge of 



28 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

Canterbury — I cannot say the outskirts, for the 
towns in England do not have sucli ragged, draggled 
things as outskirts — I stopped at a little house to get 
a glass of milk (and good, rich milk it was, price one 
penny), led thereto by a sense of emptiness (for I 
was yet breakfastless), and by a small placai-d in the 
window announcing the sale of that fluid. It was 
served out to me by a middle-aged woman, lean, 
" slabsided," sharp-nosed, with a nasal, whining voice, 
who, looking through the window past her business 
card, said, by way of making herself agreeable, as I 
quaffed her liquid ware, " Seems suthin like rain, sir I " 
It was pouring so steadily, although not violently, that 
I had thought of turning back, and giving up Harble- 
down for that day ; but this determined me, and put 
me on my mettle. If a poor wisp of womanhood like 
that could see in such a down-pour only something 
like rain, flinching would be a shame to my beard 
and my inches. I was struck, too, by the thorough. 
Yankeeness of her phrase : it might have been uttered 
on the outskirts of Boston. This likeness, however, 
struck me among the country folk in Kent on other 
occasions, to which I shall refer hereafter. In Kent 
I rarely heard an h dropped, and never one superflu- 
ously added. 

At a country house where I was visiting in Essex, 
it was agreed at luncheon that we should have a walk 
in the park that afternoon, because it was fine, and 
we had had a drive the day before, and were to have 
lawn-tennis the day after. JSTow the phrase " it 's 
fine " in England means merely that it is not actually 
raining at the time of speaking ; but when the hour 
of our walk came the rain came also with it. As our 
party was composed of two ladies and three gentle- 



ENGLISH SKIES. 29 

men, I exjDected that it would be broken up. Not at 
all. With the most matter-of-course air, the ladies, 
neither of them notably robust in figure or apparently 
in health, donned light water-proof cloaks, and, tak- 
ing each of us an umbrella, we soberly waded forth 
to our watery English walk. I hope the ladies en- 
joyed it, for they caused me to do so ; and we saw 
some noble trees and pretty views in the park and 
from it. We met a small flock of geese who did 
not hiss, but looking with goose-like sobriety seemed 
to recognize us, and to be ready to hold out to us the 
web-foot of fellowship. I observed that even the la- 
dies did not put on overshoes, but trusted merely to 
stout, serviceable walking-shoes ; and although we 
walked over grass I found that my feet were not 
wet. I had made a similar observation on my walk 
to Harbledown. Then my feet became damp, of 
course ; but although there was neither a plank nor 
an asphaltum path by the roadside (one of which is 
commonly found in the more thickly inhabited rural 
districts in England), my strong walking-shoes were 
not soiled above the sole. This I found to be the 
case again and again, so firm are the tightly graveled 
roads in England. The harmlessness of wet srass 
was a puzzle to me. I walked all over the lawns at 
Hampton Court one morning after a rain, led to do 
so by a companion who knew how things should be 
done (you always walk on grass in England, if you 
like to do so), and I neither felt nor saw upon my 
shoes any evidence of water. Under similar circum- 
stances in the United States, they would have been 
wet through in five minutes. It need hardly be said, 
however, that even when there is not a storm or an 
unusual rain the usual fall on alternate days is often 



30 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND •WITHEsT. 

too heavy to admit of parties of pleasure. Our lawn- 
tennis had to be given up as an out-of-doors perform- 
ance, although the lawn had been specially mowed 
for the occasion. But our hostess was not to be 
balked. We went into one of the drawing-rooms, 
and ourselves rolling the furniture out into the great 
hall, we stretched a rope across the room, hung cop- 
ies of the Times over it to make a barrier, and had 
our game out ; in which, by the way, the most points 
were scored by my lady herself and by a Fellow of 
St. John's College, Oxford. Unlike the America in 
the famous yacht race, the " American " was " no- 
where." 

In the gardens of such houses, or sometimes upon 
their walls, it is common to find sun-dials, relics of 
the past. Those upon the walls are very large, some 
of them being ten or twelve feet in diameter. They 
seem to have been as common as clocks, and to have 
been set up as a matter of course long after clocks 
were no rarities. But if, according to the pretty le- 
gend upon one of them, Horas non numero nisi Sere- 
nas, they were useless unless the sun shone, they 
must have been mere ornaments for much more than 
half the days in the year. For even when it does 
not rain in England the days are comparatively few 
in which the sun casts a shadow strong enough to 
mark the hour upon a dial. The noon-mark on the 
kitchen window-sill of old New England farm-houses 
was almost always, once a day, a serviceable sign of 
the time ; but a sun-dial in England must often have 
been little- more useful than a chair to a cherub. 

The low temperature of the country enables the 
people to bear the dampness, and even to find it con- 
ducive to health and enjoyment of life. " Let it be 



ENGLISH SKIES. 31 

cold," said an Englishman to me, as we walked from 
his villa to the train through a chilling drizzle, " and 
I care little if it is damp." And I found the combi- 
nation, on the whole, wholesome and not unpleasant. 
But if England, with its damp atmosphere, were sub- 
ject to our extremes of heat and cold, it would be al- 
almost uninhabitable : it would be as unhealthy in 
winter as Labrador, in summer as India. I was sur- 
prised to see the freedom with which doors were left 
open for the entrance of the air, and by the uncon- 
sciousness of possible harm with which women of the 
lower classes in the country went about in cold mist, 
or even in rain, without bonnets or shawls. For as 
to myself, at times I found this chilly fog pierce to 
the very marrow of my bones, and make me long for 
the fire which was not always attainable. And when 
I did have it, the comfort that it gave me was not so 
great as I expected it would be. Fire does not seem 
to be very warm in England. I never saw a really 
hot one. 

It is this combination of cold and damp that makes 
the Englishman so capable of food and drink. Noth- 
ing is more impressive about him than his diligence 
in this respect. He never neglects an opportunity. 
Hearty breakfast at nine o'clock ; luncheon at half 
past one or two, at which there is a hot joint and 
cold bird pies, with wine and beer; at five o'clock 
tea, generally delicious souchong, with thin bread and 
butter ; dinner at eight, serious business ; sherry and 
biscuit or sandwiches at eleven, as you take your bed- 
room candle. At home it would have killed me in 
a month ; there I throve upon it mightily, and laid 
pounds avoirdupois upon my ribs, which I lost within 
a year after my return to the air of " America," 



32 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

which so often makes one feel like desiccated codfish. 
There is no shirking whatever of this matter of eat- 
ing and drinking. It is not regarded as in the least 
indelicate, or, in the old-fashioned phrase, " ungen- 
teel," even for a lady to eat and drink anywhere at 
any time. I remarked this at a morning concert of 
the great triennial Birmingham musical festival. The 
concert began at eleven o'clock, and as the price of 
tickets was a pound (five .dollars) it is to be supposed 
that every person of the thousands present in that 
great hall had breakfasted well about eight or nine 
o'clock ; but yet when the first part was over, around 
me and everywhere within sight, even in the seats 
roped off for the nobility, luncheon bags were pro- 
duced, and flasks ; and men and women began to eat 
sandwiches and other wiches, and to drink sherry 
and water, or something else and water (but never 
the water without the something else), as if they 
feared that they would be famished before they could 
get home again. ^ And very careful in this respect 
are they of the stranger within their gates. The last 
words that I heard from a very elegant woman, as I 
parted from her to take a railway journey of three or 
four hours, were a charge to the butler to see that I 
had some sandwiches. Needless caution ! They had 
been prepared, and were produced to me in a fault- 
less package, and put into my bag with gravity and 
unction. In due time I ate them, and with appetite, 
saying grace to my fair providence. 

One effect of the climate of England (it must, I 

1 So the Scotsman Baillie, writing home about the trial of the Earl of 
StraHord, at which he was present, says that even then and there among 
the lords there was "much publict eating not only of confections, hot 
of flesh and bread, bottles of beer and wine going thick from mouth to 
mouth, and all this in the King's eye." (Bannatyne Club Ed., i. 314.) 



ENGLISH SKIES. 33 

think, be the climate) is the mellowing of all sights, 
and particularly of all sounds. Life there seems 
softer, richer, sweeter, than it is with us. Bells do 
not clang so sharp and harsh upon the ear. True, 
they are not rung so much as they are with us. Even 
in London on Sunday their sou.nd is not obtrusive. 
Indeed, the only bell sound in the great city of which 
I have a distinct memory is Big Ben's delicious, mel- 
low boom. In country walks on Sunday the distant 
chimes from the little antique spires or towers float 
to you like silver-tongued voices through the still air. 
Your own voice is hushed by them if you are with a 
companion, and you walk on in sweet and silent sad- 
ness. I shall never forget the soothing charm of the 
Bolney chime in Sussex, which, as the sun was leav- 
ing the weald to that long, slow-deepening twilight 
through which the day in England lapses gently into 
darkness, with no splendor of sunset obsequies, I 
heard in company with one whose sagacious lips, 
then hushed for a moment, are silent now forever. 
These English country chimes are very different from 
those that stun our ears from Broadway steeples. 
They are simple, and yet are not formless jangle ; 
but the performers do not undertake to play opera 
airs affetuoso and con expressione with ropes and iron 
hammers upon hollow tons of metal. 

At the Birmingham musical festival, I first re- 
marked the effect of the climate upon sound. There 
was a lai'ge instrumental band, and a good one ; and 
that it was well conducted need hardly be said, for 
the conductor was Sir Michael Costa. But in pre- 
cision of attack, in perfection of crescendo and dimi- 
nuendo^ in the finish and the phrasing of the various 
salient passages as they were successively taken up 



34 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

by the different instruments, and in sonority, I found 
the performance not quite equal to that of Mr. 
Thomas's band, the drill of which was very superior. 
A dozen bars, however, had not been played before I 
was conscious of a sweet, rich quality of tone, par- 
ticularly in the string band, which contrasted with 
the clear, hard brilliancy of the Thomas orchestra. 
This impressed me more and more as the perform- 
ance went on, although the enjoyment of it was 
marred by the organ being not perfectly in tune with 
the band. Another superiority in Costa's band at- 
tracted my attention : they accompanied much bet- 
ter than Thomas's ; with more feeling, sympathy, 
and intelligence. The singers could trust tliem and 
lean upon them. This was doubtless due in great 
part to Costa's long experience as an operatic con- 
ductor, while, on the other band, Thomas has always 
worked in instrumental music pure and simple ; but 
I cannot doubt that it was due in part "also to the 
feeling of the individual performers. As to the dif- 
ference in the quality of the tone, I can find no other 
cause for that than the climate. Possibly, however, 
the English orchestras tune to the normal pitch (al- 
though it did not seem to me to be so), in which 
case some superiority in quality of tone would, be ac- 
counted for ; the high, so-called and absurdly called, 
Philharmonic pitch being destructive of quality, 
which is sacrificed to a sharp sonority. ^ 

1 Some months after the first publication of this chapter Dr. Arthur Sul- 
livan, who was then in New York, was reported in the New York Herald 
as having remarked upon this difference in tone between the string bands 
of the two countries, and as having accounted for it to himself by the sup- 
position that the musicians in "America" were not careful in the selec- 
tion of their instruments. His surmise was natural, but erroneous. He 
would find good instruments enough here; but the mellowing air of Eng- 
land cannot be bought and brought across the ocean. There is no more 



ENGLISH SKIES. 35 

One little performance of Costa's on this occasion 
was very interesting. My seat, although not too 
near, happened to be in such a position that I could 
see all his motions, and even his face. In a piece 
from Beethoven's Mass in C there was a little fugue, 
the rhythm and the intonation of which were both 
somewhat difficult. As the tenors entered with the 
subject they were unsteady, and speedily went into 
confusion. Kuin was imminent. But turning to 
Costa I saw him, little disturbed, merely increase the 
emphasis of his beat, while he himself took up the 
subject, and, looking eagerly at the tenors, sang it 
right out at them. They were soon whipped in, and 
the performance was not only saved, but was so 
good that its repetition was demanded by the presi- 
dent, the Marquis of Hertford (no applause being al- 
lowed) ; and on the repeat the tenors behaved hand- 
somely in the presence of the enemy. 

Whether I was favored by the English climate I 
do not know, but in addition to this soft, sweet charm 
which the air seemed to give to evei-y thing that was 
to be seen or heard, I found even late autumn there 
as verdant and as variously beautiful as early sum- 
mer is with us, and without the heat from which we 
suffer. In Sussex the gardens were all abloom, wild 
flowers lit up the woods, blackberries were ripening 
in the hedges, birds singing, and everything was fresh 
and fragrant. Among the birds, I observed the 
thrush and the robin-redbreast ; the latter not that 
tawny-breasted variety of the singing thrush which 

sensitive barometer than a stringed instrument. Dampness affects them 
all so much and so quiclcly that I have known tlie first and second strings 
of a 'cello t(f rise half a tone in an hour or so with a change of wind from 
dry to damp. This rise accompanies a slight increase of the thickness of 
the string, which gives its tone a little more body. 



36 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

is here called a robin, but a little bird about half as 
large, with a thin, pointed bill, a breast of crimson, 
and a note like a loud and prolonged chirrup. It 
would be charming if we could have this man-trust- 
ing little feathered fellow with us ; but I fear that 
he could not bear our winters. In Warwickshire I 
found roses blooming, blooming in great masses half- 
way up the sides of a two-story cottage on the road 
from Stratford-on-Avon to Kenilworth ; and this was 
in the very last days of October. True, I had only 
a few days before shivered through a rainy morning 
drive in Essex, when the chill dampness seemed to 
strike into my very heart ; but on the whole I found 
myself under English skies healthy, happy, and the 
en j oyer of a succession of new delights, which yet 
seemed to me mine by birthright. 



CHAPTER III. 

ENGLAND ON THE RAILS. 

JouY, the author of "L'Hermite cle la Chauss^e 
d'Antm," which is the French " Spectator," has a re- 
mark which those who are ready to generalize upon na- 
tional peculiarities would do well to consider. " Plus 
on reflechit," he says, " et plus on observe, plus on 
se con'vainct de la fausset^ de la plupavt de ces juge- 
ments port^s sur un nation enti^re par quelques ecri- 
vains et adopt^s sans examen par les autres." ^ He 
illustrates and confirms this conclusion by asking, 
Who is the Frenchman that does not believe himself 
to be one of a people the most fickle and the most 
inconstant in the world ? Nevertheless, he adds, if 
we observe and study the character of our people 
elsewhere than in the capital, where it denaturalizes 
itself so easily, we shall discover that, so far from 
being inclined to change, the French is, of the peo- 
ples of Europe, the most enslaved by its prejudices, 
and the most bound down to routine. 

The French Addison was right; and there could 
be no more impressive illustration of the truth of his 
judgment than the opinions formed of each other, 
and tenaciously held for more than half a century, 
by the people of England and those of " America," 

1 The more we reflect, and the more we observe, the more we are con- 
vinced of the falsity of the greater part of those judgments passed upon 
a whole people by some writers and adopted without question by others. 
{L'Hermite, etc. No. v., 21st September, 1811.) 



38 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

or, as the latter is generally called in the former, 
"the States," both phrases being brief make-shifts 
for the long, complex, and purely political designa- 
tion, "the United States of America." One of these 
notions is counterchanged, as the heralds say ; coun- 
terchanging being a quaint contrivance, by wliich a 
figure, a lion for example, is shown partly of one color 
and partly of another, in opposition to a party-colored 
background of the same tints. This correspondent 
perversion and antagonism has a grotesque resem- 
blance to the opinions sometimes entertained of each 
other on one subject by two individuals or two peo- 
ples. Thus British writers, and generally the Brit- 
ish people, adopting, as Jouy savs, without question 
the opinions of their writers, speak of us as a nation 
of travelers ; while many of us, on the otlier hand, 
think of Englishmen as staid, immobile folk, slow in 
action, mental and physical, and, compared with our- 
selves, sluggish, stolid, and with a dislike of movement 
which is composed in equal parts of vis inertice and 
local attachment. 

There was never a notion more incorrect, or set up 
more directly in the face of commonly known facts. 
Englishmen are, and always have been, the greatest 
travelers in the world. Englishmen, of all people, 
have been the readiest to leave an old home for a 
new one. They are the explorers, they are the colo- 
nizers, of the earth. It is because Englishmen are 
travelers and colonizers that two English-speaking 
nations monopolize the larger and the fairer part of 
this great continent ; that the vast continent-like 
island of Australia is rapidly becoming another New 
England ; that Victoria counts among her titles that 
of Empress of Indi^ ; and that the aborigines of the 



ENGLAND ON THE RAILS. 39 

southern wilds of Africa are beginning to yield place 
to the Anglo-Saxon. Even on this continent more 
men from the Old England than from the New have 
traveled to the Western plains for curiosity or for the 
pleasures of the chase ; and in South America, — in 
the Brazils, in Peru, and in Chili, — of the English- 
speaking denizens and mercantile houses ten to one 
are British. Upon the latter point I speak not with 
personal knowledge, but by inference from what I 
do know and from testimony. 

The notion that " the Americans " are a nation of 
travelers has sprung chiefly from the largeness of our 
hotels, and the freedom with which we use them. 
In former years the greater number of English trav- 
elers in England went, except when they were actu- 
ally en route, to lodgings. It is only of late years 
that large hotels like ours have been established in 
the principal English cities ; but there, notwithstand- 
ing all that has been said of* the Englishman's dislike 
of hotel life, they are profitable, and seem to be not 
unsuited to the habits of the people. Our large hotels 
were at first the result of a certain social condition. 
We had not a class of people who liked to let a part 
of their own houses to transient lodgers of a condi- 
tion in life above their own. Keeping a hotel or a 
boarding-house as a business was quite another mat- 
ter. It was undertaken like any other business. 
Hence our hotels and boarding-houses, and our free 
use of them merely as places where we could buy 
food and rest for a few hours, jast as we could buy 
anything else at any shop, without concerning our- 
selves about the landlord in one case or the shop- 
keeper in the other. And this notion of our being 
so much more given to travel than Englishmen are 



40 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

had its origin many years ago, before railways were, 
and wlien we used steamboats even much more than 
we do now, which Englishmen can never use largely 
as a means of locomotion. A British traveler of 
that time, finding himself in one of our large river- 
boats, with one, two, or perhaps three or four hundred 
people, inferred, in his ignorance, that our whole pop- 
ulation was constantly movhig about in those to him 
wonderful vessels. He had never seen more than a 
stage-coach full of fellow-passengers at one time, and 
the great throng astonished him. But for one trav- 
eler in a stage-coach here there were a hundred in 
England, besides those who traveled post. 

However all this may have been, nowadays half 
England seems to be every day upon the rails. High 
and low, rich and poor, they spend no small part of 
their time in railway carriages. Ladies who would 
not venture themselves in a London cab alone (al- 
though that they do now pretty freely) travel by rail 
unattended, or at most with a maid, who is generally 
in a second-class carriage, while they are in a first. 
Not only married and middle-aged women do this, 
but young ladies, even of the higher and the upper- 
middle classes.^ The number of trains that enter 
and leave London, Liverpool, Birmingham, and other 
large cities daily is enormous. The great stations 
in London, of which there are six or seven, like the 
Victoria, the Charing Cross, and the Euston Street, 
swarm with crowds at all hours. The entire popula- 
tion of the island seems to be always " on the go." 
And all this is done without bustle or confusion. The 
Englishman and the Englishwoman of to-day are so 

1 Teste, : the adventure of Colonel Valentine Baker, now, as Baker 
Fasha, restored to grace and good society in England. 



ENGLAND ON THE RAILS. 41 

accustomed to travel that they go about upon the 
rails with no more fuss than in going from the draw- 
ing-room to the dining-room, and from the dining- 
room back into the drawing-room ; and this freedom 
in locomotion is much aided by the perfect system of 
the railway management, and the comfort with which 
the whole proceeding is invested. 

There has been much dispute as to the compara- 
tive convenience of the English and " American " sys- 
tems of railway traveling. I give my voice, without 
hesitation or qualification, in favor of the English. 
In England a man in his traveling, as in all other af- 
fairs of life, does not lose his individuality. He does 
not become merely one of the traveling public. He 
is not transmuted, even by that great social change- 
worker, the railway, into a mere item in a congeries 
of so many things that are to be transported from one 
place to another with the least trouble and the great- 
est gain to the cornmon carrier. His personal comfort 
is looked after ; his individual wishes are consulted so 
far as is possible. He arrives at the station with 
his luggage. One of the company's porters imme- 
diately appears, asks where he is going, and takes his 
trunks and bags. He buys his tickets, and directed, 
if he needs direction, by other servants of the com- 
pany, all of whom are in uniform, he takes his seat 
in a first-class or second-class carriage, as he has 
chosen. He is assisted to find a comfortable place, 
and, if he appears at all at a loss, is prevented by the 
attendants from getting into a wrong train or a wrong 
carriage. For here, as in all similar places in Eng- 
land, there is always some authorized person at hand 
to answer questions ; and the an-swer is civil and 
pleasant and sufficient. His luggage, properly la- 



42 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

beled, is placed in a van or compartment in the very 
carriage in which he takes his seat. For, contrary to 
the general suppositioii, first, second, and third class 
carriages are not distinct vehicles or, as we might say, 
cars, coupled together in a train. The body of the 
vehicle on each "truck" is divided into first, second, 
and third class carriages or compartments ; and each 
one of these composite vehicles has a luggage van. 
A minute or two before the train is to start a servant 
of the company, whose business it is, goes to the door 
of every carriage, and, examining the tickets of the 
passengers, sees that each one is properly placed. In 
more than one instance I saw the error of an igno- 
rant passenger who had neglected to make the proper 
inquiries rectified by this precaution, which prevents 
mistakes that would prove very annoying. When 
this has been done the doors are closed but not locked, 
the word is given " all right," and the train starts, 
and with a motion so gentle that it is hardly percep- 
tible. There is no clanging of bells or shrieking of 
whistles. The quiet of the whole proceeding is as 
impressive as its order. 

And I will here remark that that most hideous of 
all sounds, the mingled shriek and howl of the steam- 
whistle, from the annoyance of which we are hardly 
free anywhere, in town or out, is rarely heard in Eng- 
land. At Morley's Hotel in London, which fronts on 
Trafalgar Square, within a stone's-throw of the great 
Charing Cross station, and where I stopped for some 
days, I did not once hear, even in the stillness of 
night, this hideous sound. On the rails it is rarely 
heard ; and there the noise is not very unpleasant. 
It is a short, sharp sound, — a real whistle, not a de- 
moniac shriek, or a hollow, metallic roar. 



ENGLAND ON THE RAILS. 43 

The care that is taken of the safety of passengers 
is shown by an incident of which I was a witness 
when going to Canterbury. The way-stations are on 
both sides of the road. Passengers who are going up 
take the train on one side ; those going down, on the 
other. The communication between the two sides of 
the station is either by a bridge above the rails, or by 
a tunnel under-ground ; and no one who is not a serv- 
ant of the company is allowed to walk on the tracks, 
or to cross them, under any circumstances whatever. 
On the occasion to which I refer, a man stepped down 
from the platform on one side, and was instantly met 
by a person in uniform who ordered him back. He 
submitted at once, and then said, good-humoredly, 
to the station-master, " I suppose you adopted that 
regulation because of the accidents that happened." 
" No," replied the other, with a smile ; " we adopted 
it before the accidents happened." In "America" 
we wait for the accident. 

The carriages are the perfection of comfort. The 
first-class are in every way luxurious. You are as 
much at your ease as if you were in a large stuffed 
arm-chair with a back high enough to support your 
head as well as your shoulders. The second-class car- 
riages on some of the lines are hardly inferior in real 
comfort, although they are not so handsomely fitted 
up; the most important difference being a diminu- 
tion of room. But even in the first-class carriages 
there is no glare of color or of tinsel, nor shining 
ornament of wood or metal. All is rich and sober ; 
and there are no sharp corners or hard surfaces. The 
holder of a first-class ticket may ride in a second or a 
third class carriage if he desires to do so and there is 
room for him ; and I have again and again, on the 



44 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

stopping of the train at a way station, gone from one 
to the other to observe the passengers in each and to 
talk with them, — for English people are much more 
talkative and communicative than we are, particu- 
larly when they are traveling. In this way I had 
the pleasure of many long conversations, even with 
ladies whom I never saw before and whom I shall 
probably never see again. When a train stops the 
doors are all immediately thrown open, and if it is 
at a way-station the passengers give up their tickets 
as they pass out through the station. If you choose 
to go beyond the point for which you have bought 
your ticket, you merely pay the additional fare, for 
which a receipt is given ; doing which causes no ap- 
preciable delay. 

When the train reaches its destination it is stopped 
a short distance from the station, and an officer of 
the company comes to the door of the carriage and 
asks for your ticket. Sometimes this is done at the 
last way-station, if that is very near the end of the 
line. The train then moves on and quietly enters 
the station, slowing its gentle movement so gradually 
that motion insensibly becomes rest. There is no 
clanging, bumping, or shaking. If you have only 
your hand-bag and your rug, you step out, and if 
3'ou do not choose to walk, you take the first of the 
line of cabs in order as they stand, and are off in a 
minute. If you are in London, and are observant, 
you will see as you pass the gate that your cabman 
gives your address to a policeman, who writes it down 
with the number of the cab, taking a look at you as 
this is done ; but the cab does not perceptibly stop 
for it, and then is off on a trot. If you have lug- 
gage and more than a single trunk, you hold up your 



ENGLAND ON THE RAILS. 45 

finger, and one of the company's porters is instantly 
at the carriage window. You tell him to get yon a 
four-wheelerj and give him a bag, a rug, a book, or a 
newspaper, which he puts into some four-wheeled 
cab, which is thereby engaged for you. You get out, 
go with the porter to the luggage van, which is not 
one of two or three huge cars, full of trunks and 
boxes, away at the end of the train, but a small com- 
partment just at your side ; and the contents are not 
numerous, of course, as each van has only the lug- 
gage of the passengers on one vehicle. You point 
out your own trunks and boxes, the porter whisks 
them up to the cab, and in five minutes or less from 
the time when the train stopped you are trotting off 
to your house, j^our lodgings, or your hotel, and all 
your haggage is tvith you for immediate use, without 
the bother of cljocks aiid expressmen and a delivery 
of your bags and boxes at some time within half a 
day afterwai'ds. If by chance any mistake has been 
made as to . the disposition of your baggage, which 
happens with extremest rarity, according to my ob- 
servation, it is discovered at once, and there is the 
whole force of the company's porters and higher offi- 
cers to rectify it, and to search for and produce your 
propert}^ under your own observation ; and the thing 
is done in a few minutes. Police officers are there, 
too, not lounging or indifferent, but ready, quick, 
and active to give you protection and help. The re- 
sult is expedition and the keeping of your property 
under your own eye, and the having it immediately 
at your residence. It is customary to give the porter 
who gets your cab and takes your luggage to it six- 
pence or fourpence for his trouble. 

Nothing is more remarkable on an English railway 



46 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

than the civility of the company's servants ; and this 
is the more impressive because it does not at all di- 
minish their firmness and precision in obedience to 
orders. I happened on two occasions to remark this 
particularly. But before telling my own experience 
in England I will relate that of another person under 
similar circumstances in " America." 

A young gentleman, vrhom I know very well, 
started from Philadelphia to New York, buying a 
through ticket. He stopped on the way and re- 
mained a night, and the next morning resumed his 
journey. When he presented his " coupon " ticket 
to the conductor, he was told that it was worthless, 
as it was dated the day before, and Avas good only for 
the day on which it was issued. He insisted that as 
he had paid to be taken from Philadelphia to New 
York he had the right to be taken the whole distance, 
whether he stopped on the way six hours or twenty- 
four, and he refused to pay the double fare demanded. 
At the next station the conductor ordered him out of 
the car. He refused to go, and thereupon the other 
undertook to remove him ; but this, even with the 
assistance of a brakeman, was not found highly prac- 
ticable, and was given up as a bad job. When the 
train reached Trenton the conductor and his assist- 
ants entered the car with a man in plain clothes who 
said that he was an officer, and who arrested the pas- 
senger. This officer said that he was commissioned 
by the governor and by the mayor of Trenton, but 
that he was also in the employ of the company. The 
passenger demanded the intervention of the mayor, 
was able to enforce his demand, and the i-esnlt was 
his immediate release. The matter was then placed 
in the hands of a lawyer, and I believe has not yet 
been settled. 



ENGLAND ON THE RAILS, 47 

Now it SO happened that a.t that very thne I was 
in a 231'ecisely similar position in England. The af- 
fair being in all its circumstances very illustrative of 
the difference between the two countries in railway 
regulations, and in the manners of those who achiiin- 
isterec) them, I shall relate it in detail. While at the 
Great Western Hotel at Liverpool, which belongs to 
the Great Western Company and is the Liverpool 
terminus of the line, I had spoken to a porter of the 
house, who did me some little services, of my inten- 
tion to go to London in a day or two, stopping at 
Birmingham for the great triennial musical f^tival. 
On the afternoon when I was to start, I came in be- 
lated and in great haste. I had but twenty minutes 
in which to pack, pay my bill, buy my ticket, and 
get off. I sent this porter to get me a second-class 
ticket. He went, and my luggage was taken in 
charge by another porter. I reached the train just 
in time, and the first porter, whom I found standing 
at a carriage door, handed me my ticket with some 
silver change, all of which I thrust into my waist- 
coat pocket without , looking at it, and got into the 
carriage which he had selected for me. The other 
porter, who had taken my luggage, came to the door, 
said, " All right, sir," and we were off. I was so 
close upon the time of starting that the inquiry as to 
my destination was made just as the train began to 
move. To my surprise the ticket examiner said, as 
I showed him my ticket, which of course I had not 
yet had time to look at, " This ticket is for London, 
sir, and you feaid Birmingham." As it proved, the 
first porter, having heard me speak of going to Lon- 
don, had in his haste forgotten what I said about 
Birmingham, and had bought me a London ticket. 



48 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WmilN. 

I was immediately in a state of unpleasant doubt as 
to what my experience would be and wliat would be- 
come of my luggage, for I had been in the country 
hardly a week. At the first stopping-place I made 
inquiry of the guard, and was told that the stops 
were so short that nothing could be done until we 
reached Stafford, where the train would stop ten 
minutes. The train had hardly come to a stand-still 
at Stafford when he made his appearance and took 
me immediately to a superior official, who, when I 
had stated my case, said" that I must see the station- 
master ; and in less than half a minute that person- 
age appeared before me. He was an intelligent, 
middle-aged man, very respectable in his appearance, 
and very respectful in his bearing. The guard told 
him the case briefly. He ordered the luggage in the 
van of my carriage to be taken out. It was . all 
turned out, and mine was not found. I was asked 
to describe it particularly. I did so, and the order 
was given to take out all the luggage from all the 
Birmingham and London carriages. It was now 
quite dark, and the search was made with lanterns ; 
but in two or three minutes (so many hands were 
engaged, so quickly did they work, and so little lug- 
gage, comparatively, was there in each van) my 
trunks were found, duly labeled " Birmingham." 
The second porter had made no mistake. I then 
told the station-master that I had intended, as he 
saw by the labeling of my luggage, to stop at Bir- 
mingham, and asked him if with a London ticket I 
might break my journey for a day or two. He said 
that he thought that I might, bade me good-evening, 
and the train started without the delay of a minute. 
I stopped at Birmingham, stayed two days, and 



ENGLAND ON THE RAILS. 49 

then resumed my journey to London. At a short 
distance from the Euston Street Station the train 
halted, and we were asked for our tickets. I gave 
mine, and the ticket taker, glancing at it as he was 

moving on, stopped short, and said, " This is a 

day's -ticket, sir. I cannot take this." " You '11 have 
to take it," I said, " for I have no other." " Then 
I must ask you, sir, to pay me your fare from Bir- 
mingham." " I 've paid it once, and I certainly shall 
not pay it twice on this line until I have been taken 
to London." " I beg pardon, sir, but I must posi- 
tively refuse to take this ticket. It 's against my 
orders ; and I must ask you for your fare from Bir- 
mingham." I was struck by the man's respectfulness, 
civility, and quiet good humor, but none the less by 
his unflinching firmness ; and I answered him with, 
I believe, equal respect and firmness, " T am sorry, 
but I shall not pay double fare. I refuse positive- 
ly." " Then, sir," was his reply, " I must ask you 
for your name and address." I took out my card, 
wrote upon it the name of the hotel in London to 
which I was going, and handed it to him. He touched 
his cap, saying, " Thank you, sir. Good evening." 
I replied, " Good evening," and he passed on. The 
affair had, of course, attracted the attention of my 
carriage inmates, one of whom said to me, as the 
train started again, " I think you '11 find you 're 
wrong. This is a matter the companies are very 
particular about ; I don't know why ; and I believe 
the question has been decided in their favor ; I can't 
see why. You 'd better write to the general super- 
intendent of the company when you get to London," 
and he gave me that ofiicer's name. The nest morn- 
ing I did write, stated my case, received a courteous 

4 



50 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

reply, and the matter was settled quietly, good-nat- 
uredly, decently, sensibly, with respect on both sides, 
and with the least possible trouble. I think so much 
could not be said of the proceedings in the case of 
my young friend between Philadelphia and New 
York, even although he was a resident of New' York 
and was able to give a name and references very 
well known, and I was a stranger in England and 
had never been in London. 

At the great railway stations such is the throng 
of travelers ceaselessly passing back and forth, or 
waiting for trains, accompanied sometimes, in the 
case of ladies who are going alone, by friends, that 
these places afford very favorable opportunities for 
the observation of all sorts of people from all parts 
of the country, whose superficial traits may be thus 
conveniently studied and compared. The variety of 
classes and conditions is great ; the difference un- 
mistakable. Here we see nothing like it. True, we 
can tell Northerners from Southerners, Eastern from 
Western men, and can distinguish by the outside be- 
tween a denizen of one of the great cities and one 
from the rural districts. An observant eye can even 
detect slight variations between the urban and the 
suburban man or woman, none the less easily when 
the latter has had her garments carefully made ac- 
cording to the patterns in " Harper's Bazaar." But 
beyond this a close observation of our travelers tells 
us little. In England, notwithstanding the leveling 
and assimilating tendencies of the last half century, 
due largely to the railway itself, the gradation of 
classes is readily perceptible, even to a stranger's 
eye ; nor is the condition, or in many cases the oc- 
cupation, less distinguishable than the class. Agri- 



ENGLAND ON THE RAILS. 51 

cultural laborers are very rarely seen upon the rail- 
way, except when they move in gangs for special 
work ; and then they are quite likely to be Irishmen. 
The farmers travel much move than I supposed they 
did, — very much moi^e than they do with us. I 
met with them and talked with them in second-class 
cars on every line on which I traveled ; for as I have 
said it was my habit, when alone, to change my place 
at station and station. I found that my apprehen- 
sion of their class and condition from their appear- 
ance was rarely, if ever, wrong; and so it proved 
(within certain limits, of course) in regard to other 
classes. Not only are the upper classes, that is, we 
may say, those who are educated at Eton and Har- 
row and the two great universities, unmistakable by 
their bearing and expression of countenance, but 
among the professional classes a barrister would hard- 
ly be taken for a physician, or either of these for a 
clergyman, or a clergyman for either of those. The 
London city man, " commercial person," is also un- 
mistakable, unless he is one of those highly educated 
great bankers or merchants which are found in Eng- 
land, but are very rare in " America." Such a per- 
son might be taken for a peer, unless you were to see 
him and the peer together, when, with a few " tip- 
top " exceptions on the city side, the difference would 
manifest itself, if in no other way, by the counte- 
nance, if not in the behavior, of the city man him- 
self. 

The intermediate classes — commercial travelers, 
small attorneys, tradesmen, and so forth — have 
also their distinctive outside and expression, difficult 
to define in words when dress has come to be so iden- 
tical in form and color among all classes, but still, as I 



52 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

found it, quite unmistakable. I remember that on one 
Sunday, when I went to morning service at a little vil- 
lage church with the "lady of the manor," I observed 
in the choir, near which her ipew was, a man so very 
earnest in his singing that he attracted my attention. 
As we walked back through the shrubbery, just be- 
yond which the church stood, shut off by a wall 
through wliich was a little gate, I spoke to my host- 
ess of this man's singing, and asked if he was not a 
carpenter. " Yes," she answered, with a look of sur- 
prise ; "but how did you know that? " (I had come 

to only the day before.) " Oh," I said, " I 

knew that he must be an artisan, for he was plainly 
neither a farmer nor a laborer ; and as he did not look 
like the village blacksmith or wheelwright, I there- 
fore concluded that he must be a carpenter. And 
besides, he sawed away so at his singing." The 
man's dress was like that of my host in fashion and 
material, a black cloth frock and trousers, and they 
were perfectly fresh and good, and his linen was 
clean; but the difference of rank and breeding be- 
tween the two men was as manifest as if the one had 
worn his coronet, and the other his paper cap and 
apron. 

All these various classes are nowhere seen together 
as they are at the railway stations ; for, except the 
agricultural laborer and the lowest classes in the city, 
all travel. I therefore never Avas near a station with- 
out entering it and walking about for a while among 
the people there. A trifling incident at one, which 
was connected with a hotel at which I was, inter- 
ested me. I had gon'e down to breakfast in my slip- 
pers ; and when I rose from the table I walked out 
into the station, from which two or three trains were 



ENGLAND ON THE RAILS. 53 

about starting. As I was quietly eying the motley 
multitude, I heard a small voice : " Black your shoes, 
sir ? — only a penny ; " and as I did not immediately 
reply, my attention being fixed upon a group at a 
little distance from fne, the words were repeated, and 
I turned my head. The speaker was looking up 
earnestly into my face. I, smiling, pointed down to 
my slippered feet ; and the boy, a good-looking little 
fellow, smiled too, but shyly, and, seeing his mistake, 
blushed to the edges of his hair. Wonder of won- 
ders ! thought I. Here is a country in which boys 
can blush ; where boys who speak English without a 
brogue, and yet black boots, have some shamefaced- 
ness in the presence of their elders. The little fel- 
low gained somewhat by my not having a job for 
him to do ; but what he took so joyfully should have 
been more, by a hundred-fold, to acknowledge fitly 
the pleasure that I had from his shy, glowing face. 

This was on the 31st of August, and I saw in the 
station and elsewhere signs of the time unknown to 
me before. These were keepers, with leashes of dogs, 
going hither and thither to the preserves ; for shoot- 
ing was to begin on the morrow. There was such a 
fuss and talk about it that one would have thought 
that it was a matter of life and death to some thou- 
sands of gentlemen that they should burn powder 
and propel lead into birds on that day, and that some 
other thousands of men, and three or four times as 
many thousands of dogs, should be promptly on the 
spot to help them. The dogs were mostly handsome, 
intelligent animals ; the keepers were smallish, tight- 
built fellows in long gaiters, with a strange mixture 
of shrewdness and brutality in their faces. 

On my journey to London I had the good fortune 



54 ENGLAND, ■ WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

to witness an incident very characteristic of the so- 
ciety in which I was. I took the train at Birming- 
ham at about four o'clock in the afternoon. Al- 
though I had a second-class ticket, as I have said, I 
was put by mistake into a first-class carriage. The 
grades of the carriages are indicated on the glass of 
the upper half of the doors ; but . as the doors were 
opened and thrown back, I did not see " First Class " 
on the door of the one I entered. When the train 
started I was alone. At the next station, or the 
next but one, a party of three, a young gentleman 
and two ladies, approached the carriage, and one of 
the ladies entered it and took the seat next me on 
my left hand, between me and the door, I having one 
of the middle seats. Her companions appeared to 
be her brother and sister, or her sister-in-law ; and 
from their talk, which I could not avoid hearing, I 
learned that she was going a sliort distance, and was 
to be met by her husband at the station where she 
was to stop. 

When the train began its gentle, almost imper- 
ceptible motion, both of them kissed her, — the lady 
with feminine effusion, but the young gentleman in 
a perfunctory manner ; and when I saw his cool sa- 
lute, and heard his " Take care of yourself, old girl," 
I was sure he was her brother. No other man hav- 
ing his privilege could have availed himself of it with 
such indifference. For my carriage companion was 
a beautiful woman ; and her beauty impressed me 
the more because of its delicate character, and be- 
cause she was the first really beautiful woman of her 
class that I had yet seen in England. She was just 
tall enough to be noticeably so, and the noble ele- 
gance of her figure could not be concealed by her 



ENGLAND ON THE EAILS. 55 

traveling dress. This was a long garment, of a soft 
texture and light color between buff and cream, but- 
toned from the throat to the lower hem with buttons 
of the same tint as that of the dress. Her hat, or 
bonnet, was also of the same material, and was with- 
out ornament of any kind. As a bonnet has strings, 
I believe, and a hat has not, it was probably a hat ; 
for no woman not inhumanly disposed could conceal 
by a ribbon the inner outline of such a cheek as 
hers ; and she was not inhuman. In her dainty ears 
were small earrings of dull gold set with turquoises, 
which were matched by the brooch which confined a 
lace frill around her lovely throat. Her eyes were 
blue, her brow fair ; her mouth had the child-like 
sweetness which Murillo gave to the lips of his Vir- 
gins ; in expression her face was cherubic. Why I 
describe her with so much care my reader will soon 
see. She apparently had no other luggage than a 
small Russia-leather bag, which she put into the rack 
above our heads. 

We sat in silence ; for there was no occasion for 
my speaking to her, and she looked mostly out of 
the window. After we had passed one or two sta- 
tions she took down the little hand-bag, opened it, 
took out a bottle and a small silver cup, and turning 
herself somewhat more to the window poured some- 
thing into the cup and drank it off at a draught. I 
did not see what she drank ; but in an instant I 
knew. The perfume filled the whole carriage. It 
was brandy ; and the penetrating odor with which 
I was surrounded told me of the strength of her 
draught as well as if I had mixed her grog myself, 
or had joined her in a sociable cup. At this I was 
not so much astonished as I should have been two or 



56 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

three days before ; for at the Birmingham festival I 
had seen, during the interval between the two parts 
of a morning performance, potation of the same kind 
by ladies of whose respectability there could be no 
question. We went on in silence. After passing 
one or two more stations we stopped at one — Rugby, 
I believe — for a little longer time than usual. Soon 
I was conscious that some persons whom I did not 
see were about entering the open door, when my an- 
gelic beauty sprang from her seat, and placing her- 
self before the door cried out, " No, you shan't come 
in ! I won't have third-class people in the carriage ! " 
There was remonstrance which I did not clearly hear, 
and the people attempted to enter. She then threw 
her arm across the door-way like a bar, clasping 
firmly one side of the carriage with a beautiful white 
dimpled hand. Catherine Douglas, when she thrust 
her arm through the staples of the door, to keep out 
the pursuers of her king, could not have been more 
terribly in earnest. She (wy Catlierine Douglas) 
almost screamed out, " Go back ! go back ! You 
shan't come in ! This is a first-class carriage, and I 
won't have third-class people put into it ! " Then 
came counter-cries, and there was a hubbub which 
certainly was of the very first class. She turned her 
beautiful head to me with an appealing look ; but I 
sat still and made no sign. A guard, or other official 
person, who accompanied the inferior intruders ex- 
postulated with her; and I heard him explain that 
the train was so full that all the third and even the 
second class carriages were occupied, and that as 
these people had their tickets and said they must get 
on he was obliged to put them into our carriage. It 
would be for but a little while, only till we reached a 



ENGLAND ON THE EAILS. 6T 

certain station. My fair companion was obdurate, 
and perhaps was a little set up by the contents of the 
silver cup. But two first-class passengers came in, 
and as they pleaded for the admission of the luckless 
third-class people, and the assurances that there was 
no alternative and that the period of contamination 
would be brief were repeated, she at last subsided 
into her seat, although still grumbling, and the ob- 
jectionable persons were admitted. 

They certainly were not people with whom it would 
have been pleasant to sit down to dinner. One, a 
woman, took the seat on my right, and the other, 
a coarse, ill-looking fellow, sat himself opposite to 
her. The face and hands of the woman, sallow and 
leathery, although she was young, might have been 
cleaner, and contrasted very unfavorably with the 
lovely, fair, and fresh complexion of the angry 
beauty. Her nails were like claws, with long black 
tips. She had a red woolen tippet around her neck, 
and her bonnet was a hopeless mass of crumpled rib- 
bons and dingy, flaring flowers. Her companion was 
the male proper to such a female, — a little less noi- 
some, however ; for when a woman sets out to be 
dirty or disagreeable she succeeds better than a man. 
Immediately a war of words began between the two 
" ladies," and it was fought across me. The beauty 
repeated her objection to third-class people, and pro- 
tested that as she had paid for a first-class place it 
was a shame that she should be made to travel third 
class whether she would or no. She with the red 
tippet wished to know what harm she would do any- 
body by riding in the same carriage with them, and 
added, " Some peepull that coll themselves first-clawss 
peepull because they paid for a first-clawss ticket 



58 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

might be no better than other peepull that paid for a 
third-clawss ticket." A sniff and a toss of the beau- 
tiful head. Then she of the tippet : " As for me, 
I 'm not going to stop in Kugby all night with race- 
peepull." (It appeared that there had been races 
somewhere in the neighborhood of Rugby that day.) 
" If peepull tvere lionly third-clawss peepull, they 
could n't be expected to stop hall night in a place 
wen the 'ole town was filled with honl)^ race-peepull." 
This proposition seemed to meet with general bland 
assent from all the company in the carriage ; and I 
was delighted to find that below the deep of com- 
mon third-class people there was admitted to be still 
a lower deep, into which certain third-class people 
could not be expected to descend. Opposite my fair 
neighbor now sat a rubicund, well-rounded clergy- 
man, to the establishing of whose local color many 
gallons of richly-flavored port must have gone. He 
had not an apron nor even a dean's hat, but either 
would have become him well. He soothed the fair 
first-class being with a mild mixture of sympathy and 
expostulation. There was a general discussion of the 
situation, in which every one of my fellow-passengers 
had something to say ; and the impropriety of third- 
class people being put into contact with first-class 
people was generally admitted, without the least re- 
gard for the presence of her of the red tippet and of 
her companion. At last I was appealed to ; for all 
the while I had sat silent. I replied, " Really, I 
ought n't to say anything about the matter ; for I my- 
self am only a second-class passenger out of place." 
The beauty turned upon me a stare of surprise, and 
with a bewildered look " wilted down " into her 
corner. She of the dingy claws and flowers tittered, 
and the subject was dropped. 



ENGLAND ON THE RAILS. 59 

After a while the silence was broken by the third- 
class person's saying that she wanted to get to a cer- 
tain place that night, and asking vaguely, of no one 
in particular, if she could do so. There was no reply 
at first ; but after a moment or two I was surprised 
by hearing the first-class dame say " Yes," softly, 
with a mild surliness, and looking straight before her. 
Her former foe then asked, "How?" A shorter 
pause ; then, " Take the train that meets this one at 
Blisworth Junction," carne from the beautiful lips be- 
tween the turquoises, — the head turned slightly to- 
ward the questioner, and the words dropped sidelong. 
This seemingly announced a treaty of peace ; and 
again to my surprise, and much more to my pleasure, 
a conversation went on across me, but now in perfect 
amity, and information as to the minutest particulars 
was freely asked for with respectful deference, and 
given with gracious affability. 

The fact that my fair neighbor was accompanied 
to the station by her brother and sister showed that 
she was what is called " a respectable woman ; " and 
the manner and speech of the three were those of cul- 
tivated people. Moreover, upon reflection I became 
convinced that she was neither a termagant nor a par- 
ticularly ill-natured person. She had merely done, 
in a manner rather unusual, I believe, even in Eng- 
land, and somewhat too aggressive to suit all tastes, 
what it is the habit of the whole people of England 
to do : she had insisted upon her rights, and resisted 
an imposition. She meant to have what she had paid 
for. This the custom and the manner there. Eng- 
lish people are, according to my observation, kind and 
considerate, notably so, and ready to do a service to 
any one in need of it ; but they resist, vi et armis^ 



■60 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

tooth and nail, the slightest attempt to impose upon 
them; and they do it instantly, upon the spot, and 
follow the matter up vigorously. The habit is pro- 
ductive of unpleasantness sometuiies, and it may 
cause some disenchantments, but it has its advan- 
tages, and they are not small. -^ 

Another characteristic of the country is shown in 
its railway vocabulary. There are, for example, a 
"guard" or guards on the train, and a "booking 
office" at the station. The guard guards nothing, 
and has nothing to guard. The steam-horse was not 
only " vara bad for the coo," but for the highway- 
man, who long ago ceased to labor in his vocation. 
At the "booking office " no booking is done. You 
merely say, to an unseen if not invisible person, 
through a small hole, " First (or second) class, single 
(or return)," put down your money, receive your 
ticket, and depart. But as there were booking offices 
for the stage-coaches which used to run between all 
the towns and through nearly all of the villages of 
England, the term had become fixed in the minds 
and upon the lips of this nation of travelers. So it 
was with the guard and his name; and when the 
railway carriage supplanted, or rather drove out, the 
stage-coach, the old names were given to the new 
things, and the continuity of life was not completely 
broken. The railway carriages are even now often 

1 This incident, which I have told witliout embellishment, will remind 
the reader of Fielding of the indignation of Miss Graveairs at the entrance 
of Joseph Andrews into the stage-coach with her, and her declaration that 
" she would pay for two places, but would suffer no such fellow to come 
in." And it may also bring to mind that when the coach was stopped by 
highwaj'men the ladj^ gave up a little silver bottle, " which the rogue ap- 
plied to his lips and declared that it contained some of the best Nantes he 
had ever tasted." There continues to be a great deal of human nature in 
men, and some in women. 



ENGLAND ON THE RAILS. 61 

called coaches. We, however, had traveled so little 
comparatively, owing in a great measure to the long 
distances between our principal towns and even be- 
tween our villages, and stage-coaches were so com- 
paratively rare and so little used, that when the rail- 
way engine came, not only they, but all connected 
with them, words as well as men and things, disap- 
peared silently into the past, and left no trace be- 
hind. In such continuity on the one hand, and such 
lack of it on the other, is one of the characteristic 
differences between the Old England the New ; and 
its cause, as it will be seen, is not in the unlikeness 
of the people, but in that of their circumstances. 



CHAPTER IV. 

LONDON STREETS. 

I LIVED in London. I did not merely pass througli 
it on my way elsewliere, stopping for two or three 
days at a hotel while I drove about the vast den of 
lions ; nor was I content with passing a longer time 
in the same way. After a week or so of hotel life 
and sight-seeing, I sought diligently, and found not 
easily, lodgings in which I established myself as if I 
had been a bachelor born within the sound of Big 
Ben. Hence I made excursions on foot or by rail, 
but usually by both ways of travel, into the neigh- 
boring country, and chiefly into that which lies 
around the beautiful banks of the Thames. Into the 
great city itself, however, I made daily excursions ; 
for so the walks by which I explored the various 
parts, far and near, of that thickly peopled region of 
bricks and stones might well be called. I set out 
sometimes with an end to my journey clearly in mind, 
but oftenest without one, wandering on over the vast 
distances, watching the people that I met, and scan- 
nino- the houses and them that looked from the win- 
dows. But I never got to the end of London unless 
I took a steam-engine into service. Cabs and omni- 
buses were of no avail. I used them, but generally I 
walked, following no guide but my curiosity. 

I never felt so lonely as I did in these solitary ram- 
bles in London, — never so much cut off from my 



LONDON STEEETS. 63 

family and my home, I may almost say from human- 
kind. In mid-ocean I did not feel so far removed 
from living contact with the world. Within these 
boundless stretches of streets, and of houses so same, 
and yet each with a physiognomy of its own, just 
like so many men and women, — and I came to look 
at them as if they were human, and in the poor 
parts, which are of astonishing extent, where they 
stand crowded together as far every way as the eye 
can reach, to pity them for the gloomy life they led 
there, with the sweat and dirt oozing from their sad 
faces, — within these precincts, made oppressive, if 
not melancholy, by the apparently endless repetition 
of miits, it seemed to me farther than I could con- 
ceive, not onl}^ to the land that I had come from, but 
to any other place out of my range of vision. I could 
not take in even London; and what was out of Lon- 
don was beyond beyond. 

After I had walked about it enough to have in my 
mind a loose, exaggerated apprehensioif of distance, 
such as we have in childhood, and was yet not so 
much at home in tl)e place as to become familiar 
with it and to lose its impression of strangeness, the 
thought of its vastness became vague and unmeaning, 
like that of astronomical distances, which are so far 
beyond apprehension that a change in them by the 
addition or subtraction of a million of miles or so is 
of no significance. And the feeling that the rest of 
the world was very far removed from me transferred 
itself afterward to England, with some variation. 
England began to seem to me the one place that I 
knew upon all the earth : out of England was out of 
the world. What we call ^'America," although I had 
come from there in ten days, and although my eyes 



64 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

hungered for the sight of faces and my ears thirsted 
for the sound of voices there, took on a nebulous 
shape and substance, not much more cognizable than 
any other inchoate body within or without the solar 
system ; and I began to understand the long indiffer- 
ence, and the ignorance, indifference-born, of English- 
men to the country which lay beyond the horizon edge 
of the ocean. 

There is little architectural beauty in London, be- 
sides that of the wondrous nave of the great Abbey 
church. Externally, even that venerable and most 
interesting structure is so marred by Wren's towers 
that the feeling which it excites is one of constant 
regret. Within, a very considerable part of it is de- 
faced with ugly monuments, chiefly to titled nobodies ; 
and generally the more insignificant the body and the 
grander the title, the more pretentious and ugly the 
monument. It is offensive to see the statues of great 
men jostled by such a mob of vulgar marbles. 

St. Paul's, outside and inside, is the ugliest build- 
ing of any pretension that I ever saw. A lai-ge in- 
closed space is always impressive ; and the effect thus 
produced is all of which St. Paul's can boast. Its 
forms are without beauty, its lines without meaning ; 
its round windows are ridiculous. Its outside is not 
only ugly in form, a huge piece of frivolity, but its 
discoloration by the black deposit from the London 
atmosphere, and the after-peeling-off of this in patches, 
give it a most unpleasant look. It seems to be suffer- 
insf from a disease that covers it with blains and 
blotches. 

The public buildings in the City, the Bank and the 
Mansion House and the Post-Office, and so forth, 
have the beauty of fitness ; for they look just like 



LONDON STREETS. 65 

what they are, — the creations, the abode, and the 
stronghold of British Philistinism ; rich, substan- 
tial, tasteless, and oppressively respectable. The new 
Houses of Parliament present a succession of faint 
perpendicular lines in stone ; even distance cannot 
make them imposing. Only the bell-tower, whence 
Big Ben utters, four times hourly, his grand, sweet 
voice, has beauty for the eye as well as for the ear. 
The parish churches are mostly by Wren, or in his 
style, and are ugly with all the the ugliness possible 
to a perversion of the forms of classic architecture. 

In looking for lodgings, in which I had not even 
the help of advice, I went over no small part of Lon- 
don, and into many London houses of the middling 
order. My search extended from Covent Garden to 
South Kensington, and from Euston Square to the 
Thames, and even across it ; for I was led off into 
Surrey by advertisements, of the locality of which I 
knew nothing. As to the lodgings that I saw, they 
had for the most part a tendency towards the suicide 
of the lodgers ; so gloomy were they, so dingy, so 
stuffy, and so comfortless. On inquiry as to what 
rooms there were to let, I was generally told that 
there was "the dron-room floor; " and when I replied 
that I did n't want a whole floor, but a bedroom and 
a sitting-room, I was also generally told that there 
was a room to let " at the top o' the aouse." I found 
that these rooms were literally at the top of the 
house. In those which I looked at I found an iron 
bedstead with a bulgy bed, the stuffiness of which I 
smelt as soon as the door was open, and upon which 
was a dingy brown coverlet drawn over the pillow. 
A small wash-stand with small ewer and basin, a 
chest of drawers, a looking-glass, and one or two not 
5 



66 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

very robust chairs completed the furniture of the 
apartment, which always looked out upon the win- 
dows of like apartments, and the roofs above and the 
chimneys around them. For these rooms the price 
demanded was almost invariably "a paound a week." 
In Surrey and some other places it was somewhat 
less, — from fifteen to eighteen shillings. Bath-rooms 
were unknown, but "the servant would bring me a 
can of 'ot water in the morning." 

I spent the greater part of four days in this search, 
not altogether unwillingly, because of the places into 
which it took me and the people with whom it brought 
me into contact. With some of these places I seemed 
to myself not unacquainted, so familiar was I with their 
names and their localities. This was particularly the 
case with the smaller streets around the lower end of 
St. James's Park. The houses in these, — old-fash- 
ioned, and yet not old enough to be venerable or even 
antiquated, — with their plain, sombre brick fronts, 
the look of character and respectability which lin- 
gered about them, although they had long been de- 
serted as the dwelling-places of people of condition, 
and the elaborate iron-work on the steps and before 
the areas of many of them, in which I observed large 
conical iron cups, set at an angle, which, strangely 
never mentioned by any writer that I remember, 
w^ere plainly huge extinguishers into which the link- 
boys thrust their links, — all these seemed to me 
like respectable, decorous old friends of my family 
who had been waiting to see me, and who now looked 
at me with serious and yet not unkindly eyes. 

The newer part of London, near South Kensington, 
and by Hyde Park Gate and Prince's Gate, did not 
interest me so much externally ; although some of 



LONDON STREETS. 67 

the houses were made delightful to me by friends 
who had really been waiting to give me welcome. 
The houses here are very handsome. The pretentious 
talk that I have heard about Fifth Avenue houses 
leads me to say that there are hundreds of houses 
in the best parts of London — around Hyde Park, 
on Carlton Terrace, and in other like places — which 
are far finer, much more noble, as Pepys would have 
said, than any that are to be found in New York, in 
Boston, or in Philadelphia. I except some of the 
old houses in Philadelphia, — those built in the be- 
ginning of this century, in which, although there is 
little show of gilding, color, and French polish, there 
is that far higher beauty in domestic architecture 
which is given by ample and well-ordered space. I 
was in many of the houses in May Fair ; in not a few 
into which I was not invited. For if I passed a 
house which I saw was undergoing repairs, and the 
family was absent, I entered, and inquiring for the 
person in charge, I was generally able to go through 
it at the cost of a shilling or half a crown to my at- 
tendant. Sometimes houses were thrown open to 
workmen, and these I always went through unques- 
tioned. The difference between houses of this class 
and those which may be regarded as of a correspond- 
ing class in New York is that the former, while 
less showy than the latter, are more spacious, and 
have more of the dignity which accompanies large 
and well-proportioned size. The entrances, the pas- 
sage-ways, and the staircases are very much wider ; 
the halls in some are large enough to admit of sup- 
port with pillars. The drawing-rooms are notably 
spacious, and are not directly accessible from the 
front door. Both a drawing-room and a parlor are 



68 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

common in these bouses, and two drawing-rooms and 
a pavlor are not rare. But what is known in New- 
York as an English basement house (that is, one in 
which the staircase comes up into a dark hybrid sort 
of room between the front and the back parlor) must 
be so called because there are none such in England. 
I did not see one in London, or in any other English 
town that I visited. The houses are generally like 
the basement houses built in New York more than 
thirty years ago. The notion also that rows of houses 
all alike are not found in England is altogether 
wrong. In the new part of London such rows, and of 
very handsome houses, are common ; while in the new 
parts of smaller towns the houses built for people of 
moderate means stand in rows of from a dozen to 
two dozen, as like each other as one brick is like 
another. The pretense, and the consequent misrep- 
resentation, of some British travelers on this score 
is like much more of their pretension, unfounded. 
There is, however, a heavy, monotonous effect given 
to a long row of houses m New York by the hideous 
device known as a " high stoop," which is much more 
oppressive than that which could be produced by the 
indefinite repetition of any house that I saw in Lon- 
don, and which makes a row of " brown stone fronts" 
in New York the most unsightly and unhome-like- 
looking structures that the mind of man ever con- 
ceived. 

Two simple contrivances are found in almost all 
London houses of the better class which might be 
adopted with great advantage elsewhere. The first 
is a handsome square lantern, which is set in the wall 
over the street-door, and which lights from the inside 
the vestibule and from the outer the porch and steps. 



LONDON STREETS. 69 

The comfort of this lighting is very great, as every one 
accustomed to our dark steps and porches sees imme- 
diately. The other is two bells, the pulls of whicli 
are marked severally " visitors " and " servants ; " 
the convenience of which in the daily working of a 
household need not be told to any housekeeper. And 
much more numerous as servants are in London (and 
as much better as they are more numerous) than 
here, more pains are taken there than .here to save 
their labor and their steps. Over the street-door bell- 
pulls, or over the letter-boxes, of the best houses, it 
is common to see on bronze plates, " Please do not 
ring unless an answer is required." These little pre- 
cautions tend much to the common comfort of master 
and mistress, and of servants. 

There is a remarkable absence of show and preten- 
sion in the shops of London. Even in Regent Street 
and New Bond Street and St. James's Street there is 
little display, and hardly anything is done merely to 
catch the eye. And even in these quarters the shops 
are comparatively small. You may find the most 
splendid jewels, the richest fabrics, and treasures of 
art and of literature in little places that would pro- 
voke the scorn of the smallest dealer in Broadway. 
The publishers make no. show at all. The greatest 
of them are to be found in unpretending quarters, 
with little display of their literary goods, which are 
stored elsewhere. The principals are in their counting 
rooms or their parlors up-stairs, and quite inaccessi- 
ble, except when they choose to see those who send up 
their names. The book-sellers are hardly more expan- 
sive. I found that, with one or two exceptions, the men 
from whom I had received, when I was a book-buyer, 
catalogues of books of great rarity and price were in 



70 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

small, unpretending shops which in New York would 
attract no attention. But a glance at their shelves 
was provocative of a wof nl sense of impecuniosity ; 
and I found them intelligent, and with a notable 
knowledge of their business and of the literary world, 
and also of the why and the wherefore of the value 
of their books. They were not all William Picker- 
ings ; still they were generally men of whom Picker- 
ing was in some degree the type and the model. 

One day, as I turned the corner of a little street 
nor far from Covent Garden, my eye and my admi- 
ration were attracted by a pair of little old yellow 
and blue vases which stood in a window among some 
other articles of the same sort, and I wished to in- 
quire the price. The entrance to the shop or sales- 
room was in the cross-street, and proved to be merely 
the somewhat imposing door of a large, old-fashioned 
dwelling-house. I rang the bell ; which seemed to be 
rather an odd way of getting into a place where arti- 
cles were exposed to public sale. The door was 
opened. I ventured to say that I wished to know 
the price of a pair of vases in the window, speaking, 
I am sure, with some shyness and hesitation ; for I 
felt rather as if I were intruding upon household 
privacy. This feeling was not diminished by the 
sequel. First, a stout, middle-aged man appeared, 
descending the stairs. He was in a dressing-gown 
and slippers, with a smokihg-cap on his head. He 
was closely followed by a middle-aged woman, plainly 
his wife, also stout, and clad in dingy garments of 
heterogeneous fashion. I was received with great 
distinction, almost with ceremony ; and while I was 
repeating my simple wish to know the price of those 
vases, a young woman, doubtless the daughter of the 



LONDON STEEETS. 71 

respectable persons before me, descended the stairs, 
and, taking up a position in the rear, joined her par- 
ents in looking at me. After her came a blowsy lit- 
tle Scotch terrier, who trotted to the front of the 
group, and stood, with nervous nostrils, looking up 
into my face through the chinks in his soft shock of 
hair. The servant who had opened the door with- 
drew slowly and by stages, facing about like the rear- 
guard of a retreating army ; and thus she, for a while, 
was added to the group. And all this merely be- 
cause I wished to know the price of a pair of vases, 

— vases put in the window to catch the eye of the 
passer-by. 

I was marshaled into the show-room. I walked 
across it at the head of the party, keeping my coun- 
tenance and pretending, impostor that I was, to take 
the whole performance as a matter of course, when 
in fact I felt as if I were making believe that I was 
a Highland chief with his tail on. I pointed out the 
pottery, whereupon my host — for such I felt he was 

— bowed, and blandly smiling said, " Hah ! yessur, 
yessur ; most helegant vawses ; quite rococo, indeed ; 
hin the Rennysawnce style ; hand only sixty guineas." 
The stout wife repeated, "Quite hin the Rennysawnce 
style." The daughter did not speak, but I saw that 
she longed to do so ; and if the terrier could have 
barked Rennysawnce I am sure he would have done 
so in fine style, for he seemed by far the most intelli- 
gent of the party. I thanked my host, and said I 
would think about it ; — another base imposture on 
my part, for I could not afford to give sixty guineas 
for a pair of little blue and yellow pots. But what 
was I to do when a man turned out the guard as if I 
were officer of the day making grand rounds, and all 



72 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

just because I wished to know the price of a pair of 
vases ? I was about to withdraw promptly, feeling 
very much ashamed of myself ; but I was not allowed 
to do so. I was asked to look at the rest of the stock, 
and with such heartiness of manner that I saw plainly 
that, altogether apart from the question of present 
purchase, they would all like to have me examine 
what they had for sale. I made the round of two 
rooms, escorted by the family ; and after seeing many 
beautiful things, I bade good-morning to my enter- 
tainers, who courteously attended me to the door in 
a body, and stood there until I turned the corner ; 
and all because I wished to inquire the price of. a pair 
of vases. 

I did not have quite such a formidable reception at 
any other of the many little shops which I entered to 
bu}^, or to make inquiries ; but this instance is indic- 
ative of the style which I found in vogue. On the 
first occasion or two when I did not buy, I felt quite 
ashamed of myself for putting such very polite peo- 
ple to so much trouble ; but I soon got used to the 
fashion, and liked it. For indeed it is pleasanter 
than that carriage of the salesman or the saleswoman 
(who advertises herself as a " saleslady ") which 
seems to say, " I would die on the spot, or ruin my 
employer, rather than show you the least deference, 
or take any trouble to please you." 

I was struck by the readiness to sell to me, a per- 
fect stranger and chance passer-by, and to send home 
my purchases without even asking payment. These 
good people could not have been readier to supply 
my w^ants if I had been an old customer. I remem- 
ber buying an umbrella in Burlington Arcade, and 
ordering my name to be engraved upon the handle. 



LONDON STREETS. 73 

It was on my second day in London. I had given my 
address, but I expected to stop at the shop on my re- 
turn, look at the engraving, and pay for the whole, 
and have it sent home. This I did not do, wandering 
back by another way. On reaching my hotel, there 
I found my umbrella, with the engraving nicely done, 
but not even a bill. The next morning I went and 
paid for it, and thanked the shop-keeper for sending 
it to me, a perfect stranger, and jestingly added, 
" How did you know I should come back again ? " 
The answer, with a smiling shake of the head, was, 
" Oh, sir, we don't lose much money in that way." 
There was always a readiness to " book " anything I 
liked, but seemed reluctant to buy. Once, when the 
keeper of an old curiosity shop, a woman, earnestly 
suggested that she should send me home a magnifi- 
cent pair of fire-dogs, which I lingered over in ad- 
miration, the dog part being reduced copies in bronze 
of Michael Angelo's Day and Night on the Tomb of 
the Medici, and, the price being eighty guineas, I had 
replied rather curtly, " Thanks, but I can't afford it ; 
I 've no money," the answer was, immediately, " Oh, 
sir, we 'd book it for you with pleasure." This readi- 
ness was but one mode of the manifestation of a gen- 
eral confidence which seemed to me remarkable, and 
the existence of which was a most pleasing social 
trait. If I had been a resident of London, and these 
good people had known but my name, the matter 
would have had a different aspect ; but in every case 
it was my first visit to the shop and I was quite alone.^ 

1 A singular exception to this confidence is worthy of remark. I wished 
to hire a violoncello, that in odd moments I might keep my fingers from 
rusting. I was required to give a reference ; and there was so much 
fuss that I simply deposited the value of the instrument. Not being satis- 
fied with the one I got, I went elsewhere for another, to have the same ex- 



74 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

And when bills do come in with goods, or afterwards, 
they are sent " with the compliments " of Messrs. 
So-and-So, and with a request for further orders and 
the honor of your recommendation. If you express 
a wish to examine anything, it is sent to you for 
approval " with compliments." If it is desirable 
that you should inspect anything which is in making 
for you, you have a respectful note asking you to do 
Messrs. So-and-So the favor of calling at your con- 
venience ; and this although your order may be only 
a matter of a pound or two, and Messrs. So-and-So 
may be able to " buy you " a thousand times over, 
and know it. If this is a result or a necessary ac- 
companiment of aristocratic institutions, they cer- 
tainly in one respect have a wholesome and elevating 
influence. 

London shop-streets are in a great measure free 
from the abominable defacement not only of tele- 
graph poles, but of what we now call signs. Even 
in the Strand, in Oxford Street, and in Edgeware 
Road, where the shops are second-rate, there are few 
such great, glaring, gilded boards as afPront the eye 
in every trading quarter of New York. There are 
signs, but they are com23aratively few and small and 
inoffensive ; and of flag-staffs and transparencies and 
other rag-fair appurtenances there are none. This 
is one characteristic of . London streets that makes 
walking through them a pleasant and a soothing 
process. And this unmarring modesty of outward 

perience. This argues rather ill for the good behavior of my fellow-fid- 
dlers. But having this time given a reference, I found that I might have 
had all the fiddles in the shop on my bare word. And besides, having 
hired one for a month, on giving it up in a few days less than a month, I 
offered, of course, the price for the time for which I had engaged it, and 
was surprised to receive back a shilling or two, deducted for those days. 



LONDON STEEETS. 15 

show involves no inconvenience. I never had the 
least difficulty in finding any shop to which I wished 
to go, but once ; and in that case the fault was 
my own. But there is one peculiarity of London 
streets which is somewhat embarrassing to a stran- 
ger : they are not, the long ones at least, numbered 
regularly from end to end, with the odd numbers 
on one side and the even on the other, but very ir- 
regulai'ly and in sections; the sections being those 
parts of the street which run through certain quar- 
ters ; and the same street has different names in dif- 
ferent quarters. The quarter in which a house or 
shop stands is generally named, as well as the street 
itself. This produces those double designations which 
are found in most London addresses ; for example, 
" Bedford Street, Covent Garden ; " " Wellington 
Street, Strand;" or "Bond Street, Regent Street;" 
and I have one, " 11 Vigo Street, Regent Street, 
W. Poultry." The complication makes no difficulty 
when once you are used to it ; and it has a pictur- 
esqueness and individuality which seemed to me far 
preferable to the right-angled and numerical street 
arrangement which rules off a city in square blocks, 
and numbers the houses in the first 100, 101, and so 
on, those in the second 200, 201, and so on. It is 
difficult to attach any idea of personal possession or 
peculiarity to such an address as No. 1347 Chestnut 
Street, or No. 100 West Fifty-First Street. How 
much more character there is in the Black Swan 
without Temple Bar, the Queen's Head against St. 
Dunstan's Church, the Golden Ball in St. Paul's 
Churchyard, or the Kings Arms in Little Britain ! 
What we call signs, nowadays, are really not signs, 
but quite the contrary. A sign is a symbol, — a 



76 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

thing of one kind wliicli represents or indicates some- 
thing of another kind, or which is adopted as a desig- 
nation for a particular place or person. Indeed, a 
sign is not a description in words, but as Bardolph 
might say, a sign is — something — which — whereby 
— we make a sign of something. Thus we read in old 
books of such addresses as those mentioned above, 
and of the sign of the Bible, or of the Crown, or of 
the Rising Sun, or of the Cock, or of the Eagle, or of 
the Red Lion, or what not. These were really signs, 
and they came into use to designate shops or inns in 
times when few people could read. A board on 
wbich is written the name of the person over whose 
door it is, with a description of his business and the 
number of the house, is not properly a sign ; although 
when these descriptions took the place of the old 
signs the name of the latter was transferred to the 
former. 

A few of the old sort of signs remain in London, 
and in some instances the name of an old sign re- 
mains as the designation of the house. One of these 
is the famous hostelry, The Cock, in Fleet Street, 
hard by Temple Bar. But lately Temple Bar has 
been removed from Fleet Street, and I believe the 
Cock itself has come down from the old perch, and 
crows no more. I took my luncheon there one day 
in a low, dark room, with a sanded floor. There 
Avere boxes, with little dingy green curtains along the 
top ; the seats were as hard and straight as those of a 
pew in an old New England meeting-house. It was 
probably in the same condition when Dr. Johnson, 
who lived not far off, took his dinner there. I ob- 
served that the score was still kept with chalk. The 
attendants were very sad and solemn. But for their 



LONDON STREETS. 77 

black swallow-tailed coats and neckties that had once 
been white, you might have supposed them the very- 
waiters that had just heard the news of the death of 
Queen Anne. The spirit of British Philistinism was 
concentrated there. The beef and the beer were in- 
deed supremely good ; but notwithstanding this and 
the interest attaching to the place, my luncheon was 
a rather doleful and depressing performance. 

What is to be done without Temple Bar across 
Fleet Street who shall say ? I had thought that this 
obstruction, architecturally not very admirable, had 
its title to respect in some close connection with the 
British constitution, which is of about the same age; 
and this notion was not unsettled when I saw the 
props and make-shifts by which it was kept from fall- 
ing into disastrous ruin. Its removal shows how, at 
the last moment, the English mind can rise to the 
emergency of a great reform ; and its preservation in 
one of the parks shows equally that respectful con- 
sideration for the memory of the past which is one 
of the estimable and lovable traits of the national 
character. 

Nothing is more remarkable in London than the 
suddenness with which you may pass from a thronged 
street bustling with the business of the modern 
world into quiet and silence amid verdure and vener- 
able memories. Out of Fleet Street you go through 
a small gate-way and a narrow, dim passage which 
promises nothing, into the Temple Gardens, whei*e, 
hearing no sound but that of leaves rustling lazily and 
a fountain plashing drowsily, you may walk, on such 
a beautiful day as that on which I walked there, mus- 
ing amid a sweet stillness that could not be more 
undisturbed if you were in the rural heart of Eng- 



78 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

land. If you know one of the resident benchers or 
barristers, and choose to visit him, you will find his 
name painted in small black letters on the lintel of 
a door ; and you will go up a rude staircase with a 
heav}^ beam hand-rail that will remind you of the 
stairs at Harvard and Yale in the halls that are the 
most old-fashioned and the rudest. You will see 
your friend's card upon the outside of a plain, dingy 
deal door; but that passed, you are likely to find 
yourself in chambers that are the perfection of unpre- 
tending luxury and comfort ; and your friend's talk 
and the wine that he will offer you are likely to be 
such that you would gladly sit the whole day enjoy- 
ing both, quite oblivious of London, the hum of which 
steals so lightly to your ears in the pauses that it 
seems less a thing of time present than a dim mem- 
ory. 

Stretching down to the Thames for half a mile 
below Charing Cross are little streets with naiTow 
entrances which suddenly widen, and on either side of 
which are old houses now mostly let out in lodgings. 
They lead to gardens by the river-side ; and there, 
too, you may walk or sit in silence, while just behind 
you roars the Strand. These streets bear the names 
of great families whose city residences were built 
there when the Strand was a suburban road by 
the river-side. The great houses have disappeared, 
most of them long ago ; but the last of them, North- 
umberland House, was taken down quite lately. 
Three years ago its dilapidated basement and founda- 
tions still stood just be3^ond Trafalgar Square, the 
last ragged remnant of feudal magnificence in Lon- 
don. 

From the upper end of Trafalgar Square, out of 



LONDON STREETS. 79 

which issues Pall Mall, the street of the great clubs, 
and hard by which are the public offices of Downing 
Street, it is not five minutes' walk to St. James's 
Park, with its long stretches of green turf, its great 
trees and its water, where wild fowl dive and flit into 
hiding. Here Dorimants and Bellairs might make 
appointments, and keep them unobserved, just as they 
did in the days of Charles II. and of Etherege ; al- 
though, indeed, prying eyes might look down from 
the gardens of the noble houses on Carlton Terrace, 
built in the reign of a king who had all of Charles's 
vices without any of his manly good nature or his 
wit. Beyond St. James's, Green Park stretches along 
the unbuilt side of Piccadilly to Hyde Park, which is 
a wilderness of arboral beauty, and where, if you 
prefer silence and solitude to the throng and display 
of Rotten Row, you may sit under the branches of 
great trees, and fancy yourself in the Forest of Arden, 
although cabs and omnibuses are dashing along within 
half a mile of you. There I saw clumps of oaks cast- 
ing shadows that covered nearly an acre, with acres 
of sunlit greensward lying beyond them ; and after 
a ramble of a mile or more I struck diagonally across 
the park, and came to a straight avenue about half a 
mile long between lofty elms, which were the edges of 
a noble wood, so free from undergrowth that the eye 
could pass from trunk to trunk until distance brought 
obscurity. 

The London omnibus, or 'bus as it is universally 
called, is a much less pretentious vehicle than that 
which plies up and down Broadway and Madison 
Avenue ; and in some respects it is much less com- 
fortable. It is small, sober in color, and in form a 
mere ugly square box on wheels. It is in constant 



80 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

use as an advertising van. Its windows are immova- 
ble. At tlie upper end there is no window or aper- 
ture at all, nor is there any in the roof ; the only 
means of ventilation being the window through which 
you see the conductor standing upon the step, where, 
like the head-waiter at the Cock, he keej)s his score 
(on some lines, at least) in chalk. On a muggy day 
one of these air-tight London 'busses, filled with the 
Queen's liege subjects, not of the upper classes (who 
rarely or never enter one), is not pervaded with the 
odors of Ceylon, or with the freshness of the breezes 
on the top of Mount "Washington. If you use an 
omnibus, ride upon the outside ; and this is some- 
thing to do ; for you have not seen London streets 
unless you have looked down upon them from the 
top of an omnibus. 

There is one comfort in the London 'bus which dis- 
tinguishes it and all other jDublic vehicles in England 
from those in the United States. They are not over- 
crowded. No one is permitted to enter a full 'bus or 
tramway car and stand up in it to the annoyance of 
other persons. Neither in London nor in any other 
part of England did I see this offense against good 
manners committed even once. If an omnibus were 
full, the conductor took up no more passengers. And 
yet the street travel in London is of course much 
greater than it is in New York, where omnibus pro- 
prietors and the managers of street railways, prac- 
ticing for their profit upon the supineness of one 
part of the public and the dull perceptions and rude 
manners of another part, are permitted to carry peo- 
ple packed so closely together that they are pressed 
into a somewhat lasting semblance of sameness, like 
the wax cells in a bee-hive. Entering a car once 



LONDON STREETS. 81 

on a tramway in Birkenhead, near Liverpool, I found 
every seat occupied. I purposely stood up to see 
what would come of it. I had found all sorts of pub- 
lic servants, guards on railways, beadles in churches, 
and vergers in cathedrals, very considerate and ac- 
commodating ; but I had not stood a moment when 
the conductor of this car came to me, and said, with 
that mixture of deference and firmness which I have 
mentioned before, " Beg pardon, sir, but you can't 
stand here." I yielded, of course, immediately, and 
went out ; but stopped, again purposely, upon the 
platform. "Beg pardon, sir," immediately said my 
conductor, " but you know no one is allowed to stand 
upon the platform. Please go on top ; plenty of 
room there." And thither I went, where I had in- 
tended to go from the first. 

Everything in the England of to-day is bound by vis- 
ible links to the England of the past. This is mani- 
fest even on the railways, as I have before remarked ; 
and the very omnibuses in London preserve these 
signs of the continuity of English national, municipal, 
and social life. London, from the time when it was 
a little walled town, has always had suburbs lying 
a mile or two away, and these suburbs it has grad- 
ually absorbed ; being in this respect like, but only 
in a certain degree, other great cities in other coun- 
tries. No other great city has had so many subur- 
ban villages around it. But though London has 
taken them to itself, it has not destroyed them ; they 
preserve their names, and still to a certain degree 
their individual existence. Thus Charing Cross, 
Kensington, Paddington, Putney, Hackney, Bays- 
water, Brompton, etc., which are quarters more or 
less new of metropolitan London (not the city 



82 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

proper), were once villages and parishes, separated 
from the city by green fields. Of this fact the Lon- 
don omnibus is a daily witness and record. It is not 
quite a mere public vehicle running through streets 
to take up chance passengers, but is still a sort of 
stage-coach plying between stage and stage, stopping 
regularly at each to take up passengers who assemble 
there. The fares are determined by this custom. 
They are not so much for the whole distance run by 
the 'bus, or for any part of it, but twopence from one 
stage to another, or threepence for a longer trip. 
Chance passengers are of course taken up and set 
down at any point ; but much the greater number 
are taken up at these distinct stages, and leave the 
'bus at some one of them. The various stages are 
set forth, with their proper fares, on a board at the 
upper end of the vehicle. 

The practice in the United States has been just 
the reverse of this, and deliberately so. For exam- 
ple, omnibuses began to run in New York just as they 
did in London, between the centre of trade and sub- 
urbs which had become attached to the city. Green- 
wich and Chelsea were suburban villages, to the first 
of which people fled from New York, when the city 
was visited by yellow fever, only some fifty and odd 
years ago. Fifteen or twenty years afterwards the 
first line of omnibuses was set up to ply between 
Wall Street and Greenwich, and " Greenwich " was 
painted on the 'bus, as " Charing Cross," or " Ham- 
mersmith," or " The Elephant and Castle," is upon 
a 'bus in London. But what trace of Greenwich is 
there now in New York? The name is never seen nor 
heard ; and few inhabitants of New York know that 
there ever was such a village at a place on the west 



LONDON STREETS. 83 

side, not quite half-way from the Battery to Central 
Park. So Williamsburgli, a considerable town, has 
been united to Brooklyn within the last twenty-five 
years ; but its old name is rapidly fading away before 
the glories of its new appellation, " Brooklyn East 
District," for which its real name has been changed, 
with conspicuous loss of convenience, individuality, 
and dignit}^ Names of streets are changed in the 
most ruthless manner. We have in New York not 
only the destruction of history long ago in the change 
of Queen Street into Pearl Street, and the late snob- 
bish and silly change of Laurens Street to South 
Fifth Avenue, but within a year or two Amity Street 
has been made into Third Street ; and there has been 
an attempt to wipe away the name of Lord Chatham 
from the thoroughfare to which it was given in honor 
of his protest against the oppression of the American 
colonies. 

This foolish and vulgar fashion cannot rightly be 
called " American," It belongs chiefly to New York, 
the most characterless place in every respect that is 
known to me ; but I am unacquainted with any of its 
Western imitations. Li Boston they do not thus 
blot out all memories of the past, nor at the South. 
I have a friend in Annapolis who lives in Duke of 
Gloucester Street; and there is comfort in the date 
of her letters. But the New York numerical system 
will probably prevail until States and counties and 
cities are subjected to it, — why not ? — and we shall 
have letters addressed to No. 243^ West 1279th Street, 
City Seven, County Twenty-Three, State Five. A 
lovely arrangement this will be, when it takes place. 
But it is merely a consistent carrying out of the plan 
already adopted. What associations of home or of 



84 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

happiness can there be with a number ? With what 
face can a man speak of the time when he lived in 
dear old One Hundred and Seventy-Fifth Street ? 
For my part, I would rather than this go back to the 
obsolete addresses of London, and live over against 
the sign of the Black-Boy and Stomach- A die in Lit- 
tle Britain. London does not retain these old names 
and things in their old form and force, but she does 
not wipe them out as with a wet sponge, and begin 
the world anew for every generation. As to finding 
one's way about in London, there is no difficulty in it 
whatever ; at least I had none, although I was a per- 
fect stranger, and generally — because I preferred to 
be so — without guide or companion. 

I saw no beggars in London streets. Even in the 
poorest quarters, where, but for the half-drunken 
look of half the people, it seemed to me that the very 
tap-rooms must have shut up for want of custom, and 
where I felt as if I were five miles from decency, so 
long had I walked without seeing a clean shirt on a 
man or a clean face on a woman, 1 was not asked 
for alms. This was not peculiar to London. Li all 
England, town and country, I was begged of but 
once, and that was in effect for food, not money. 
Having at home every day, and many times a day, 
proof that there is nothing about me to forbid the 
asking of alms, I was soon struck by this absolute 
absence of beggars, and I threw myself in the way 
of solicitation, but with no success. I thought once 
that I should succeed with a poor woman who had a 
few faded little nosegays for sale, and who impor- 
tuned me to buy. I said no, that I could do nothing 
with her flowers, but spoke kindly. She entreated 
me to buy, and followed me out of Bond Street as I 



LONDON STREETS. 85 

turned into another street, holding out her sickly lit- 
tle bouquets, which I thought might be like the wan, 
feeble children that she had left at home. I still shook 
my head, but did not tell her to go away, and I am sure 
must have looked the compassion that I felt. I meant 
to buy a nosegay, but I thought. Surely this woman 
will ask me to give her something. But no ; she 
even followed me to the very door of the house where 
I was going, thrusting the flowers almost into my 
face, and saying, " Only sixpence, sir ; please buy 
one : " but she did not beg. I remained obdurate in 
vain, until the door opened, and then I took her nose- 
gay, and put something into her hand which, little as 
it was, brought joy into her face, and the door closed 
upon her looking on her palm and making a half- 
dazed courtesy. 

It was in the Strand, about nine o'clock in the 
evening, that I met my only beggar. As I walked 
leisurely through that thronged thoroughfare, sud- 
denly I was conscious of a woman's presence, and a 
woman's voice asking, " Please, sir, would you give 
me tuppence to buy one of those pork-pies in that 
shop ? I 'm so hungry." I paused. The face that 
was looking up into mine with entreaty in the eyes 
was that of a young woman about twenty years old, 
not pretty, but with that coarse comeliness which 
is not uncommon among lowly born Englishwomen. 
Her dress was neat and comfortable, but not at all 
smart. As I looked at her doubtingly, she said, 
" You tlnnk I want it for drink ; but indeed, in- 
deed, I don't, sir. You need n't give me the tup- 
pence ; you may come and buy the pie yourself, sir, 
and see me eat it, if you will." She pointed across 
the street to a little shop where pastry and other 



86 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

viands were in the window. I bad no doubt that 
her object in walking the Strand at that hour in 
■ the evening was not to. beg for pork pies, but I de- 
cided to do as she suggested. We crossed the street 
and entered the shop. It was a very small place, 
humble and rude ; much more so than I expected 
to find it from the look of the window. However, 
it seemed perfectly quiet and respectable, — merely 
a tiny eating-house that lived by the chance cus- 
tom of the poorest wayfarers along the Strand. Be- 
hind the little counter stood a woman so fat that 
she looked like a huge pork-pie in petticoats. I said 
to the girl, " Never mind the pie ; call for what you 
like." "May I?" she cried, her eyes brightening 
wide with pleasure ; and then, turning to the little 
counter, she said, with a largeness of manner and an 
intensity of satisfaction the sight of which was worth 
a Cincinnati of pork-pies, " Stewed tripe and pota- 
toes!" 

We sat down in a little pen upon deal seats and at 
a deal board that had once been painted, but, I think, 
never washed. Stewed tripe was manifestly a stand- 
ing dish ; for we had hardly taken our seats when a 
plate, a soup plate, of it came up through a sort of 
trap-door just outside our pen, with two large un- 
peeled potatoes on a smaller plate. My companion 
made a hasty plunge outside, and set them smilingly 
upon the table. The principal dish looked like a 
bucket of bill-sticker's paste, into which a piece of a 
bill had fallen, as sometimes happens, and become 
thoroughly soaked. It was steaming hot, and gave 
out a faint, sickening smell, in which I detected an 
element that reminded me of an occasion when, upon 
the recommendation of a professed good liver, I 



LONDON STEEETS. 87 

had vainly tried to eat a little tripe broiled after 
some wonderful fashion. The girl seized upon the 
potatoes ; and although they were so hot that she 
plainly could not touch them without pain, she 
squeezed them out of their skins into the pasty fluid 
in which the tripe was wallowing. At once she be- 
gan to eat the grumous mess, and ate so hastily, almost 
voraciously, that she burnt her mouth. I told her 
not to eat so, fast, but to take her time, and let the 
stuff cool. "But I 'm so hungry," was her reply. 
She abated but little of her eagerness, and soon fin- 
ished her portion to the last morsel and the last drop. 
Upon my invitation she ate some trifle more ; but 
Avhen I asked her if she would have some beer, to my 
surprise she said no, adding, " They 've no tap here." 
This is the case in many eating-houses in London, of 
the better as well as of the lower order. At one 
where, early in my London experience, I was eating a 
chop, I was asked if I would like anything to drink, 
and ordering a pint of half-and-half, I was surprised at 
the waiter's saying, " Please to give me the money." 
To my look of inquiry he replied, " We 've no license, 
sir, and we send out." This just reverses the prac- 
tice in New York, where the keeper of a bar will add 
a skeleton restaurant and two beds to his establish- 
ment for the purpose of making sure his license to 
sell beer and spirits. I suppose that there are not 
half a dozen restaurants in New York where ale and 
beer may not be had for the asking. 

When the girl had stayed her hunger, I led her to 
talk, to which she seemed not at all unwilling. She 
proved to be one of those simple, good-natured, com- 
mon-sensible, but not quick or clever, women who 
abound in England. She told me a story, — with a 



88 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

man in it, of course. When was a woman's stofy 
without one ? A man's story sometimes, although 
rarely, may have no woman in it; but a woman's 
withont a man, — never. This one had no incident, 
no peculiarity, which gave ^it the slightest interest. 
It was the baldest possible narration of fact. She 
had been at service, and her child was born about 
four months ago ; that was all. But there was also 
an entire absence of the pretensions and the com- 
plaints common in such cases ; universal in the 
United States, but more rarely heard in England, I 
believe, where there is less sham upon all subjects. 
In this case, at least, thei-e was not a word of re- 
proach, and no talk of betrayal or of ruin. On the 
contrary, she said frankly, " I 've no call to find any 
fault with him." I respected the girl for this can- 
dor. "But," she added, "I did think he needn't 
have run away just before my baby was going to be 
born. The poor little kid would n't have done him 
any harm." I more than heartily agreed with her 
here, when I found that she had neither seen the fa- 
ther of her child nor heard from him for nearly six 
months. But I could not but respect her simplicity, 
her uncomplaining endurance, and her cheerfulness; 
for she spoke hopefully, and with such slight but lov- 
ing reference to her baby that I was sure that when 
it left her breast she would hunger before it did. 
To be sure, she had health and strength and youth 
and courage, and some humble friends who did not 
cast her off ; but for all that that selfish and cowardly 
fellow knew, she miglit have been dead, or worse, 
lying ill and starving with his child on straw in a 
garret. Her feeling toward him seemed to be that 
of mild contempt, because he had lacked the manli- 



LONDON STREETS. 89 

ness to face the consequences of his own conduct. 
She made no claim upon him whatever. From what 
I saw and heard I came to the conclusion that among 
the lower classes in England an unmarried mother 
is not in general treated so cruelly by her friends as 
in corresponding circumstances she is with us. As I 
made a slight contribution to the comfort of her baby, 
she begged me to go home with her and "see the 
little kid," with regard to whose prettiness she gave 
me very confident assurances. To this invitation I 
did not seriously incline. We went out into the 
glaring, g?is-lit, bustling Strand. She shook hands 
with me in a hearty way, and with no profusion of 
thanks from her we parted. I turned after I had 
walked a few steps, and saw her standing still amid 
the hurrying throng, looking earnestly after me. I 
nodded to her, went on my way, and saw her no 
more. 

I observed, as she was talking with me, that she 
did not maltreat her h's. I found other instances of 
a like correctness of speech among people of her low 
condition of life in England ; but they are Yery rare, 
— rarest of all in London. The others that I met 
with were, if I remember rightly, chiefly in Kent and 
in Lancashire. 



CHAPTER V. 

LIVING- IN LONDON. 

My search for lodgings in London ended in my 
fixing myself in Maddox Street, which runs from Re- 
gent Street near its upper end across New Bond 
Street. Here I had a parlor, bedroom, and dressing- 
room on the second floor ; and, although they were 
not handsome, perhaps hardly cheerful, I was very 
comfortable. I did not mind it that my little side- 
board, my sofa, and my chairs were old mahogany of 
the hideous fashion of George IV. 's day. They were 
respectable, and there was a keeping between them 
and the street into which I looked through chintz 
window-curtains that reminded me not unpleasantly 
of those that had hung over my mother's bed in my 
boyhood. They were much more grateful to my eye 
than those which formed the canopy of my bed, which 
were heavy moreen of such undisturbed antiquity 
that they made the room somewhat stuffy. But I 
liked the old bedstead, which was a. four-poster so 
high that I ascended to it by steps ; and those also 
brough^ back my boyhood to me in the recollection 
of a dreadful fall which I had from just such a pair, 
which I had mounted to blow a feather into the air, 
m defiance of parental injunction. The low French 
bedstead long ago drove the four-poster out of " Amer- 
ican " bedrooms, in the Northern cities at least ; but 
in England the stately and, to uneasy sleepers, some- . 



LIVING IN LONDON. 91 

what dangerous old night pavilions still hold their 
own, not only in London lodgings of the higher class, 
but in great country houses, where they have stood, 
many of them, for more than a century, some of 
them for more than two. 

English beds are, in the day-time, among the few 
things in England which I did not find pleasant to 
look upon. This is because of the fashion in which 
they are made up, which seems to be invariable. The 
coverlet is drawn up over the pillows ; and the cur- 
tains, hanging from the canopy or pushed up to the 
head-posts, are then drawn across the upper part of 
the bed, one curtain being folded over the other. To 
an eye accustomed to the sight of white pillow-cases 
and of the upper sheet turned down over the coverlet, 
the effect of the English arrangement is gloomy, 
stuffy, and forbidding. But at night, when the maid 
has released and half drawn the curtains and turned 
down the coverlet, and has prepared everything for 
your night toilet, an English bed-chamber, even in 
lodgings, has a very attractive and sleejD-inviting as- 
pect. The bed, too, kee23s the promise to the eye. 
English beds are delightful to sleep upon, and are 
something in feeling between a hair mattress and a 
well-stuffed feather bed, soft upon the surface, yet 
firm beneath. I found all English beds so, even in 
the inns of small provincial towns. 

The neighborhood in which my rooms were had 
some little interest for me, and would have had more 
if I had been a woman, from the fact that they were 
within a few yards of St. George's Church, Hanover 
Square, where the marriages of which accounts are 
published in the London newspapers almost always 
take place. My fair readers I believe' have won- 



92 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

dered, some of them I know have wondered, why the 
Lady Arabella must always be married at St. George's. 
The reason is simply this: that St. George's was until 
lately the westernmost parish of London, the " West 
End " parish, that which is nearest the quarter known 
as Belgravia.^ Now an Englishwoman, whatever her 
position, is married, as a rule, at her parish church ; 
if from her father's country-seat, at the little old 
stone building which has stood just outside the park 
perhaps for centuries ; if in London, at St. George's, 
Hanover Square. The church is, however, not upon 
Hanover Square ; not nearer it, indeed, than Grace 
Church is to Union Square, or than the " Old South " 
is to Boston Common. It has its designation, after 
the London fashion which I have mentioned before, 
because it is in the neighborhood of Hanover Square. 
The church itself is ugly enough, like most of the 
London churches built in the last century ; but it is 
somewhat imposing from its lai'ge portico, over which 
is a handsome pediment supported by six Corinthian 
pillars. Inside, however, it is mean and frivolous, 
almost vulgar. It is remarkable that this portico 
stands out over the pavement or sidewalk, the steps 
rising abruptly from the edge of the road, so that pe- 
destrians walking upon that side of the street must 
go into the road, or mount the steps and pass within 
the pillars as if they were going to church. The ef- 
fect is somewhat that of a huge ecclesiastical trap set 
to catch wayfaring sinners. 

When I took these lodgings, I was struck with an- 
other manifestation of that confidence which I have 

1 Of late such marriages have been "celebrated " at All Saints' Church, 
Knightsbridge, and at Christ Church, May Fair, as well as at St. George's. 
The first two are very much farther west than the third. 



LIVING IN LONDON. 93 

already mentioned. One day, as I passed througii 
the street, I stopped and looked at the rooms, at- 
tracted by a neat little card in the lower window, 
announcing that there were "apartments to be let." ^ 
Three days afterwards I came unannounced in a cab 
with my luggage, and, finding that the rooms were 
still unlet, said that I would take them for an indefi- 
nite time between a fortnight and six weeks. I was 
made welcome, and my luggage was taken up-stairs. 
I had not yet given even my name ; but now I pre- 
sented my card, the name on which I am sure my 
landlady had never seen before, and asked if I should 
pay a week in advance. The answer was, " Oh, no, 
we don't want that, sir." Inquiries were then made 
as to how I would like to be taken care of, at what 
hour I should breakfast, and so forth. For the rooms 
I paid a guinea and a half a week, exclusive of fire 
and candles. For breakfast, and for luncheon when I 
chose to take it there, I was to pay just the cost of 
what was furnished to me. I found the bills for 
these " extras " very moderate ; and from the time 
when this arrangement was made I never saw my 
landlady, heard the sound of her voice, or was re- 
minded of her existence, except by her bill, which 
appeared, with every item carefully priced, weekly 
upon my breakfast table. I was expected to pay 
for every article that I asked for, no matter how tri- 
fling. An extra candle appeared in the bill ; and I 
remarked, when the arrangement as to my occupa- 
tion of the I'ooms was making, that Mrs. said, 

" As you won't dine at 'ome, you say, there '11 be no 

1 I have heard this phrase, " to be let," called an Americanism, —what, 
indeed, have I not? But I found it, to my surprise, very much more 
common in England than in the United States, whei-e, so far as my ob- 
servation extends, it is comparatively rare. 



94 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

charge for kitclien fire." It seems that the cost of 
heat expended in making breakfast is counted in the 
room rent of London lodgings, but that for every 
dinner that may be served there is an extra charge 
for kitchen fire. 

I paid also for the v^^ashing of my bed-linen, towels, 
and napkins. My own clothes were sent out for me 
to the laundress, of whom I knew nothing but the 
wonderfully written bills on minute scraps of paper 
which came with the returned garments. The price 
of their lavation looked very small to me, as indeed 
it should have been if price bore any porportion to 
purification. For it seemed to me sometimes, when 
they came back, as if the smoke and dirt of London, 
which was upon them in streaks and patches when 
they were sent ont, had be^i merely dissolved and 
diffused through them, and fixed in them by heat and 
starch. For once I sympathized heartily with that 
selfish snob, George Brummell, — the sufferance of 
whose impudent vulgarity by English gentlemen and 
gentlewomen was always a marvel to me, — in his 
insistence upon country washing. Was his charm a 
singularity in being clean in his person and neat in 
his dress ? Charles James Fox was a dirty sloven. 
Country washing in England is as fine as can be ; the 
clothes come to you as white as snow, and seeming to 
bring with them a suggestion of daisies and lavender. 
But London washing seems to be done in a dilution 
of grime; and how, indeed, could it be otherwise ? 

This homely subject leads me to remark upon the 
relief of the English housekeeper of middling rank 
from one great trial of her "American" sister in a 
corresponding condition of life. In no English house- 
hold of a station above that in which washing is done 



LIVING IN LONDON, 95 

as a means of livelihood is any washing done at all, 
except in great houses in the country where there is 
a laundry service. The weekly wash which is the 
ever-recurring torment of most "American" house- 
keepers is unknown in England. Everything is sent 
out to a laundress. I think that the effect of this is 
one element of the greater serenity and repose of 
English life. Nor would English kitchens — and I 
saw not a few, in full operation, in houses of all 
grades — admit of the laundry work that is carried 
on in so many " American " kitchens where there is 
no separate laundry. The English kitchen in the 
houses of men of moderate means — for example, 
professional men and merchants not wealthy — is 
not half so large as that in corresponding houses 
with us. A set of standing-tubs would more than 
half fill it. And that Moloch of the " American " 
kitchen, the great mass of heated iron known as a 
range, is almost unknown in England. The fire- 
places are comparatively small ; the fire is open, and 
although there is the hob and the hot closet and the 
boiler, the whole affair is much less formidable than 
our range, which looks like an iron-clad gun- boat 
stranded upon the hearth-stone. 

I dined, when not at the house of a friend, at res- 
taurants of various grades. Eating and drinking is 
such serious business in England, and is taken so 
much to heart by everybody, that one expects to find 
ample and worthy provision for it in the great capi- 
tal. But although a stranger need not go hungry in 
London if he has money in his pocket, he is not sure 
of being able to breakfast, lunch, dine, or sup to his 
satisfaction, at short notice, if he is at all fastidious 
as to viands, cookery, or table service. There are 



96 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

eating-houses in great numbers and variety, at some 
of wliich you may fare sumptuously, and at many of 
which excellent cold beef and hot, tender chops may 
be had, with good beer, and even good wine ; but of 
restaurants at which you may order from a copious bill 
of fare to your liking, there are very few. I did not 
find one that would compare favorably with half a 
dozen that I could name in New York, or with Par- 
ker's in Boston. 

At most of the London eating-houses of the first 
class there is a set dinner at set hours, or rather two 
or three set dinners of different grades, which are 
served at corresponding prices. The courses, few or 
many, are placed before you in due order, and the 
cooking is tolerably good ; but you cannot travel out 
of the record ; and as to coming in at your own hour 
and making up your own menu^ the preparation of 
which begins while you are dallying with oysters and 
soup, that is almost out of the question. 

Of course, there is good reason for this ; for it need 
hardly be said that London can and will have any- 
thing that it wants ; and I find the reason in the 
habits of the people, who are prone to regularity of 
life, and as a rule have a liking for the simple and 
the solid, and are not inclined to be fanciful. Not- 
withstanding the introduction of French cookery and 
dinners a la Musse among the luxurious classes, the 
" average " Englishman, even if he can afford to be 
fanciful and luxurious, has a liking for his joint, and 
is satisfied with that if it is well cooked, juicy, and 
large enough. Lord Palmerston used to tell his but- 
ler, when people were coming to dinner, to get what 
he pleased for the rest, but to be sure to have a good 
joint of roast mutton and an apple-pie for him, — 



LIVING IN LONDON. 97 

and " Pam " was a typical Englishman. Moreover, 
the Englishman generally likes to eat his dinner at 
home, even if he is living at lodgings ; if not at home, 
at his club ; if neither at home nor at his club, then 
at some eating-house, where he goes regularly and 
takes the regular course of things, content if his 
dinner is plentiful, his wine sound and strong, and 
his cheese mild, but reserving the right to grumble, 
with good occasion or without. He is not inclined, 
like the Frenchman, to take his wife and children to 
a restaurant and make his dinner a work of art, more 
or less varied and rich in design and costliness, ac- 
cording to the condition of his purse or the festivous- 
ness of the occasion. Such, too, if I mistake not, 
were the habits and tastes of Yankees, until the Del- 
monicos introduced into New York, some thirty or 
forty years ago, I believe, the French restaurant sys- 
tem, which has gradually exercised a modifying influ- 
ence upon habits of life in this respect throughout 
the country. It may be questioned whether, all cir- 
cumstances and consequences being considered, this 
influence has been in every respect benign, even upon 
cookery. 

The joint is still dominant upon the average Eng- 
lish table. Its rule is visible, tangible, almost oppress- 
ive. It appears in various forms, even at breakfast. 
That greasy Juggernaut of many American breakfast 
tables, a hot beefsteak, or a beefsteak which is not 
hot, is almost unknown as a morning dish in Eng- 
land ; at least, I had the pleasure of never seeing it, 
even at an inn ; but mighty cold sirloins, and legs of 
mutton, and hams, and birds in pies, and mysterious 
potted creatures weigh down the buffet at all the 
great hotels. Your eggs and bacon, your sole or 
7 



98 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

your whiting, with, your muffin kept hot by a bow] 
of hot water beneath the plate, are set before you 
upon your special table ; but to yonder mountainous 
holocaust of cold heterogeneous flesh you may take 
your plate at pleasure, and carve for yourself, and 
cut and come again. In private houses the same ar- 
rangement obtains, but modified and gently tempered 
to eyes more fastidious and appetites more delicate 
than are generally found in a public coffee-room. 

In the windows of the middling restaurants, soon 
after noon, placards begin to appear, announcing in 
large letters, "A Hot Joint at 2 o'clock," and a like 
promulgation is made at intervals of an hour or 
thereabout. It seemed to me as if there was a degree 
of solemnity about this ; and I am sure that the word 
joint in reference to the table is uttered with a not- 
able unctuousness and emphasis by the average Eng- 
lishman. 

At the Garrick club a member may have a friend 
not a member to dine with him, and the stranger may 
have any kind of soup, fish, made dish, or pastry ; but 
he may not have a slice of the joint. Of that sacred 
thing only the initiated may partake. To maintain 
the cultus of the joint in its purity, and at the same 
time to meet the requirements of English hospitality, 
a peculiar kind of steak has been invented at this club 
where it is served to visitors instead of roast meat. 

At a restaurant of high class just out of Regent 
Street, at which I dined twice, the worship of the 
joint was impressively brought Kome to me. The 
room was a handsome one, and the service rich, al- 
most elegant ; the diners seemed to be all of such a 
condition in life as one would expect to find in such 
a place. In due time I was asked whether I would 



LIVING IN LONDON. 99 

have roast beef or roast mutton. I cliose mutton, of 
course. Whereupon my waiter disappeared, and pres- 
ently returned, slowly followed by a man clothed in 
a white garment and with a white cap upon his head. 
In one hand he bore a huge naked blade that looked 
like a sabre, in the other what seemed to be some 
pronged instrument of torture. Behind him came an 
assistant who pushed forward on rollers a small stag- 
ing of dark wood, which was solemnly set before me. 
I looked in amazement, but with little apprehension 
of peril ; for was I not in the land of Magna Cbarta, 
and trial by jury, and the Bill of Rights ? It was in 
truth not a block, and the man in the white cap was 
not a headsman who had come to take my head, al- 
though upon the seeming block was a charger large 
enough to have held that of John the Baptist if he 
had been as big as Goliath of Gath. But it was al- 
ready occupied by a huge roast saddle of mutton, and 
the man in white was only the carver. The blade 
gleamed in the air and descended upon the joint, and 
the only result of this solemnity was that there lay 
upon my plate a large slice of mutton so delicious 
that the eating of it marks an era in my gastronomic 
life. I shall date my dinners back and forth from the 
day when I ate that mutton. 

In no other eating-house that I remember was 
there so formal and elaborate a cultus of the joint as 
this, which I believe is peculiar to the house where I 
saw it. But in all others, and particularly in those 
of a somewhat lower grade, I observed that the joint 
was spoken of with a certain deference and unction, 
much as, for example, when it was said that Mr. 
Blank was particularly engaged ; " Lord So-and-so was 
with him." The manager of the place where the 



100 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

joint was solemnly sacrificed to the god of Philistia 
had but finely apprehended and boldly conformed to 
the spirit of the public, one of whose, priests he was. 
His carving performance was a little above and yet 
closely akin to that of the grill-rooms, the attraction 
of which is that your chop, or your kidney, or your 
steak, is broiled before your eyes. You may pick 
out your chop, if you like to do so, see it put upon 
the gridiron, and stand by while it steams and smokes 
and hisses and sputters before you, and, hastening to 
your table, send it steaming, smoking, hissing, and 
sputtering clown your throat. The smell of cooking 
is one of the sensuous miseries of life ; and the sight 
of a gashed and dismembered joint, with its severed 
'tendons and fibres, its gory gravy, and the sickening 
smell of its greasy vapor, is, it would seem, what any 
man not a Fijian of the old school would gladly avoid. 
But in England, eating, with us a necessity, with the 
French an art, is a religion, and the joint is, like some 
other fetiches, at once god and sacrifice. The de- 
vouring of hot, red, half-roasted flesh is high among 
the duties and the beatitudes. 

I said .that when asked to choose between beef 
and mutton of course I chose mutton, and that I was 
richly rewarded for my preference. Much as Eng- 
lish mutton has been praised, not half enough, so far 
as I know, has been said of its excellence. As to the 
roast beef of Old England, it is good enough, but al- 
though I suppose that I had opportunities of eating 
the best that could be had, I found it no better in 
flavor or in fibre than that to which I had been ac- 
customed. On the whole, I think that, although we 
have nothing better, one is rather surer of getting 
very good beef here than there. I found the beef- 



LTVIXG IN LONDON. 101 

steaks decidedly inferior to ours. But with English 
mutton, eaten in England, there is none to be com- 
pared. Canada mutton, and even English eaten 
here, is inferior in every respect. Although I had 
such a distaste for mutton, particularly when roasted, 
that I had often said, to the discomfiture of the do- 
mestic powers, that I should be glad never to see it 
again upon the table, in England I ate it always when 
it was to be had. There it was mutton which was 
mutton, and yet was not muttony. For tenderness, 
juiciness, and flavor, it was beyond praise. It was 
merely to be eaten with thankfulness. 

To return to my lodgings : for my comfort in tliem 
I was chiefly, and indeed it seemed almost entirely, 
dependent upon a maid-servant who took care of them 
and of me, and who was always ready when I touched 
my bell. Emma — for that was lier name — Avas a 
typical specimen of her class. The prettiest women 
I saw in England were, with few exceptions, among 
the chamber-maids and the bar-maids; and Emma's 
fine figure, bright eyes, and ever pleasant and re- 
spectful manner of course enhanced the agreeable 
effect of her careful and thoughtful service. They 
even caused me to be somewhat disturbed by the 
consciousness of the fact that she cleaned the shoes 
which sbe brought up with my can of hot water 
in the morning. I did not quite like to feel that a 
woman, and a pretty young woman, performed that 
service for me.^ 

The freedom, innocent and unconscious, of the 
English chamber-maid was also a surjDrise to me. At 

1 I let this passage stand as it was first written : yet how much more 
rehictant I ought to have been were the woman old ! But a man cannot 
help being a man. 



102 ElTGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

the house of a friend, in one of the suburbs of Lon- 
don, soon after my arrival, I was awakened by a slight 
tap at the door, and a rosy, blue-eyed, fair-haired 
young woman, of that type of English beauty which 
is not too often seen in England, walked into my 
bedroom with a can of hot water. I was startled, 
although I did not find the shock at all unpleasant. 
She set out my " tub " and my rough towels, and dis- 
appeared with a pleasant " Good-morning, sir." One 
reason for this agreeable ceremony is that bath-rooms 
are rare in English houses ; and in households in 
which men-servants are not kept, the maid-servants 
perform all such offices. For that a "gentleman" 
should do anything for himself, even in the prepara- 
tion for his own toilet, is not to be thought of, except 
in some great emergency. 

The care with which one is looked after by these 
good creatures — and they seemed to me to be the 
perfection of good nature and of thoughtful kindli- 
ness, and made me wish that I had sovereigns to give 
them instead of shillings — was illustrated to me on 
my return to my lodgings from my first dining out. 
It was after midnight when I came in. In the pas- 
sage below stood a lighted candle, and against it 
leaned something, I forget now what, which showed 
that it was meant for me. I found the door of my 
sitting-room wide open, with a chair set against it to 
keep it so ; for, like all the other doors in my rooms, 
it was hung upon beveled hinges, which caused it to 
shut gently of itself. Upon the table directly in front 
of the door stood two candles unlighted; between 
them were the letters and cards that had been left 
for me during the evening. The door between my 
sitting-room and bedroom was also wide open, and 



LIVING IN LONDON. ' 103 

was stayed back, as also was that of my dressing- 
room. In both bedroom and dressmg-room every- 
thing was prepared for my night toilet, even to the 
laying out of ray night-shirt " in a wow " upon the 
bed, like Dundreary's dozen. This careful setting 
open' of all the doors did indeed suggest to me a sus- 
picion on Emma's part of the condition in which I 
might possibly return from dinner ; but that I readily 
forgave her for the forethought. Briefly, there was 
nothing that I could wish or reasonably expect to 
have done for my comfort that this good girl did not 
do for me, generally without my asking it. After I 
had been in my rooms a day or two, she seemed to 
understand me, and to know what I should like, and 
to set herself to making my stay as pleasant as possi- 
ble. And, like most of her class that I saw, she added 
to her ministrations the grace of cheerfulness, while 
at the same time, although she was not without the 
capacity of enjoying a little complimentary chaff, her 
manner was perfectly modest and proper, mingling 
respect for herself and for me with an ease of man- 
ner very uncommon in the Hibernian maid-servant of 
" America." 

She illustrated to me one day a superstition which 
had quite faded out of my memory. I had asked for 
a fire, which she laid and lit, but which, owing to 
some ill condition of the air, smouldered in blackness. 
I went into my bedroom for a minute, and, returning, 
found the open tongs laid over the top of the coals, 
and Emma standing over the grate watching it in- 
tently. " What is that for ? " I asked, pointing to 
the tongs. " To draw up the fire, thir," replied the 
girl, who added a little lisp to the charm of her soft 
English voice ; and then I remembered that I had 



104 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

read of this superstition, but I did not suppose that 
it still held its own in England, and that I should 
ever see it acted upon in simple good faith. The 
blaze at last came up, and . the girl lifted off the 
tongs with a little look of triumph at my face, which 
I suppose showed some of the amusement and the 
doubt I meant to conceal. 

With all their respectfulness and deference, Eng- 
lish servants and people in humble life indulge in a 
freedom of speech of which democracy has unfor- 
tunately deprived us. I made purchases from day to 
day ; they were greater in number and in bulk than 
in value ; and one day, being a little annoyed by the 
clutter which they made upon my table and sofa, 
when Emma brought in an addition to it which had 
just come home, I cried out against them. "And 
yet they keepth a-comin', thir," said the girl, as she 
turned to go out. Another time, sitting in solitude, 
and being very much vexed at a mistake that I had 
made, I exclaimed, " I do sometimes think that I act 
like a born fool!" "I thuppoth tho, thir," demurely 
said Emma, who had entered from my bedroom just 
as I spoke. I looked at her a moment, and we both 
laughed, — I heartily, she shyly and blushing. And 
yet in all this there was not the slightest lack of 
respect ; she never forgot her place, and I could not 
but think in regard to her, as I thought in regard to 
others in like condition, how much better this free- 
dom of intercourse was, how much more human, than 
an absolute interdiction of all communion between 
the server and the served, and how much it might 
do to smooth and sweeten life for both. 

I was witness to a scene of freedom between the 
server and the served in which the conditions and 



LIVING IN LONDON. 105 

the sexes were reversed. One morning I went to 
take an early walk in Hyde Park. It was not later 
than nine o'clock, which for London, and pai-ticularly 
for that end of London, is very early. And indeed, 
as I walked at my will through path, or over lawn, 
and beneath great trees, with that perfect freedom 
the consciousness, or rather the unconscious posses- 
sion, of which adds so much to the charms of an 
English park, the rays of the sun slanting through 
a golden mist, the cool freshness of the turf, and 
a moisture yet upon the leaves made the land- 
scape seem like one seen soon after dawn in an 
American summer. I had crossed the Serpentine, 
and was walking slowly along the foot-path by the 
side of the road, when I saw coming towards me a 
3^oung lady on horseback. She was riding alone; 
but at the usual distance behind her I saw her groom. 
Till then I had found the park as deserted as if it 
were midnight; and now I and the two distant riders 
were the only living things in sight ; and sound there 
was none except a gentle murmur faintly coming from 
the town, as it slowly wakened into life. The riders 
walked their horses, and as we gradually approached 
each other I saw that my horsewoman was a large, 
fair girl, some twenty years of age. She rode a hand- 
some bright bay, remarkably tall and powerful, as 
indeed the horse that carried her had need to be ; 
for she herself was notably tall, and her figure was 
full to the utmost amplitude of outline consistent 
with beauty. Plainly, neither she nor the groom 
saw me, and as I wished to have a good look at her 
without seeming rude I withdrew myself into a posi- 
tion which enabled me to do so, as she passed within 
a few yards of me. She was not beautiful, and pretty 



106 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

would have been too small a word to apply to her in 
any case, but she certamly was a fine, handsome girl ; 
her face breathed health and sweetness and good nat- 
ure ; she was very fair, with glowing cheeks, and 
teeth that made me thank her for smiling as she 
passed. She wore a blue riding-habit that fitted 
very close, and of course a chimney-pot hat. As 
she drew near to me, I saw that the groom gradually 
shortened the distance between them, and spoke to 
her, he speaking first. She answered, and they be- 
gan to talk, he bringing his horse step by step nearer 
hers. Looking at him attentively, I found him one 
of the handsomest men I had ever seen. He was tall, 
and strongly although sparely built, with fair skin, 
dark hair and whiskers, steel-gray eyes, and a firm 
yet persuasive-looking month. He was in complete 
groom's costume, top-boots, livery-buttons, and striped 
waistcoat, but these did not seem able to subdue a 
certain distinction in his bearing. Perhaps, how- 
ever, he was only a fine, handsome animal, and would 
have been vulgarized by being put into a dress-coat 
and a white neck-tie, — that crucial test of a man's 
ability to look like a gentleman. Nearer and nearer 
he came to his young mistress, closer and closer his 
horse sidled up to hers, till when they had just passed 
me he was hardly a head behind her, — just enough 
to say behind. He spoke earnestly now, leaning over 
toward her from his saddle ; and she did not lean the 
other way, but turned her head slightly to him, and 
looked down with a sidelong glance upon the ground. 
I could hear her voice as well as his, and although I 
was not able to distinguish the words of either, and 
the sounds became fainter with the slow stepping of 
their horses, I felt somewhat ashamed of my position. 



LIVING IN LONDON. 107 

And yet the place was public, and I had expected 
only to see a young lady ride past me. Gradually 
I lost the sound of their voices, but I still saw the 
groom leaning toward her and her head not turned 
away from him. At length it seemed as if their 
saddle-girths must touch, and as if he must be 
tempted to put his arm around her, as she sat there, 
except for the blue woolen surface. Lady Godiva 
from the saddle up. But he was discreet, and merely 
held his place : — the blue outlines of her noble fig- 
ure became indistinct, the great gleaming knot of her 
golden hair waned and faded in the distance, and 
they rode out of my sight, leaving me to wonder 
what might come of all this. 

Another of my early walks was to Covent Garden 
market, where I went soon after sunrise to see the 
early trafSc. Covent Garden, with an adherence to 
the signification of its name, is a market for flowers 
and vegetables only. It is not much frequented by 
private purchasers, but is the place where dealers, 
green-grocers and coster-mongers supply themselves. 
Half London gets its supply of garden stuff from 
Covent Garden. I found little peculiar in the place, 
except its size and the filling of this vast expanse with 
vegetable produce. I arrived in the height of the 
early business. All around the place were the little 
carts of the little dealers, waiting to be filled, or just 
filled and hurrying off at that break-neck pace with 
which such people think it necessary to drive as well 
in London as in New York. Even the donkey-carts 
went off with rapidity. The number of these was 
amazing and amusing. I never saw so many donkeys 
on four legs before, nor shall I ever see so many again. 
There were ears enough there to have stretched in a 



108 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

straight line through London. The hurry and the bus- 
tle were bewildering. Every dealer seemed to think 
that his fortune for the day depended upon his making 
his purchases and getting off with his load five min- 
utes before his neighbor. But in the midst of all, here 
and there auctions went on, — Dutch auctions as they 
are called. For it has long been the strange cus- 
tom to sell vegetables and flowers every morning by 
auction at Covent Garden ; but the sale is called an 
auction because the offered price does not increase, 
but diminish. The things are put up at a certain 
price, which is gradually lowered by the crier, until 
they are taken at the rate last named. When this so- 
called Dutch form of auction came in I did not learn. 
The vegetables were much what may be found in 
our own markets, but seemed fresher, perhaps be- 
cause I saw them earlier in the morning than it is 
my wont to see anything. I took note of no novelty 
except the vegetable marrow, that fruit of the soil 
which Mrs. Nickleby's admirer cast at her feet. On 
eating this vegetable, I thought it most ill adapted to 
the expression of an ardent passion, in which it inight 
yield to the pretensions of a pumpkin. It looks like 
a long, smooth squash ; and even when it passes 
through the hands of a skillful cook, it tastes like 
squash and water. 

The fruit at Covent Garden, some of it, was fine 
and fair to the eye ; but in this respect I found in 
England much to be desired. I shall not say with 
Hawthorne that I never tasted anything there that 
had half the flavor of a New England turnip ; but, 
excepting grapes, I found the flavor even of wall fruit 
and hot-house fruit comparatively tame. Apples 
were small and tough ; pears, mostly from France, 



LIVING IN LONDON. 109 

were better, but still inferior ; peaches were often 
fair to tlie eye, yet at best rather greenish in tint, 
and within always almost tasteless, little more than 
a pleasantly acid watery pulp. Indeed, the climate 
of England is not well adapted to the growth either 
of fruit or of grain. For both there seems to be 
required a drier and longer continued heat than her 
skies afford. The hot-house supplies this in part for 
fruit, but only in part, except, I am told, as to the 
strawberry ; but that I did not eat ; it was not in sea- 
son. The melons, even those which came from Spain, 
were poor, flashy things, far past the help even of 
pepper and salt. Yet it is poor melon the flavor of 
which is not spoiled by condiments. As to grain, it 
remains to be proved, and will probably erelong be 
tested, whether England might not better abandon 
its culture, and depend, for wheat at least, upon other 
countries. To this end come the corn laws. 

It is not very far from Covent Garden to Seven 
Dials. This place is so called from the fact that by 
the meeting of seven streets seven corners are formed, 
at each of which there was once, it is said, a dial. 
This place has a reputation like that of Five Points 
in New York ; and it is remarkable that the meeting 
of man}^ streets should in both cities have been fol- 
lowed by a degradation of the neighborhood. But 
Seven Dials, although I found that it richly deserved 
the ill odor in which it stands, is not, as Five Points 
is, or was, the lowest and most wretched part of the 
town. There are neighborhoods in London which 
are to Seven Dials as Seven Dials is to May Fair. 
These are regions which stretch away to the east and 
north from the city proper. They are a town in them- 
selves. The formation of a nest of slums one can 



110 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

understand ; but it was inconceivable to me how this 
vast area of wretchedness and vice, and of moral and 
physical filth and gloom, could have come into exist- 
ence in a, civilized country. I went into the inner- 
most recesses of it, — into quarters which I found few 
London men knew of, and whei-e I was warned by 
those who did know them that there was danger. 
But although remarked and gazed at, I was not mo- 
lested ; and although I had nothing with me for self- 
protection but an umbrella, I came out unharmed. 
Indeed, I have found that a man may go almost any- 
where and among almost any people, if he will only 
behave to them as if he neither fears nor hates them ; 
and the only way of doing that is neither to fear nor 
to hate. 

I found here nothing to provoke hate, nothing lu- 
dicrous, nothing amusing. The sadness of it weighed 
heavily upon my spirit. The houses were high and 
without any character whatever ; plain brick walls, 
lead-colored for the most part, and pierced with mod- 
ern windows. Indeed, all this part of London is 
quite modern. In one little court, however, that I 
penetrated running out of Whitecross Street (a street 
named twice by Defoe in his " History of the Plague 
in London : " once as the street in which a shop-keeper 
lived who was summoned to the closed door of his 
deserted shop to pay money, and who, with death in 
his face, told the messenger to stop at Cripplegate 
church and bid them ring the passing bell for him, 
and died that day ; nest as the scene of the burning 
to death, of a plague-stricken citizen in his bed, and, 
as it was supposed, by his own hand), I found a rem- 
nant of the old city, a relic of the great fire which so 
closely followed the great plague, more than two hun- 



LIVING IN LONDON. Ill 

dred years ago. It was tlie rounded corner of an old 
peak-roofed stone o^ plaster house, only two stories 
high, which had escaped the burning ; and although 
not more than about twenty feet square of it seemed 
to have been left, this had characteristically been 
preserved, and was built into the modern building. 
From the quaint windows of this ancient habitation 
two girls, not more than twelve or thirteen years old, 
but with pallid faces and a hideous leer, began to 
chaff me as I stood in the little court. I felt that to 
be the most dangerous place that I had ever been in, 
although I had walked under the walls in Havana 
more than twenty years ago ; and I turned away and 
got out of it as soon as possible, but went leisurely, 
nodding good-by to the girls. 

And in these streets there were shops, although of 
what forlornness of aspect who can tell ! But they 
told that even these people buy and sell and get gain, 
and live upon each other. It would seem that they 
must live altogether by thieving and burglai'y. One 
business was strange to me. Cooked food was sold 
at stands, at not very remote distances from each 
other. A board or two was stretched across two 
trestles or two barrels, and on this were a few pota- 
toes, bits of bacon, and other viands. I saw no one 
eating ; at which I did not wonder. There might 
have been much of interest to be learned from the 
people in these houses, but upon that I could hardly 
venture ; externally, they only oppressed me by the 
endless sameness of the dull and formless misery 
which seemed to dwell within them and about them. 

The mention of the great fire reminds me that one 
day I passed the place where it was stayed. This is 
Pye Corner ; and the fact is recorded in a little in- 



112 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

scription on one of the houses. It had an interest to 
me beyond that of the event thus announced ; for 
Pye Corner is the place where Mrs. Quickly tells us 
that Falstaff came continuantly to buy a saddle. Most 
unexpectedly Lcame upon this memorial of the old 
London of Elizabeth's and Henry V.'s days ; and I 
confess that by the help of Mrs. Quickly I felt my- 
self nearer to Shakespeare there than when I stood 
in his father's cottage in Stratford, or looked upon 
his signature in the British Museum. 

The scene of Falstaff's continuant shopping for a 
saddle is also celebrated by Defoe, who tells us, in 
his "History of the Devil," that the fact that Satan 
had a cloven foot is certified by " that learned famil- 
iarist Mother Hazel, whose writings are to be found 
at the famous library at Pye Corner." Did the cir- 
culating library spring up at Pye Corner to flower 
into Mudie and the Grosvenor ? 

What proportion of intelligent Londoners know 
that there is such a place as Pye Corner, and such a 
street as Whitecross Street, I shall not undertake to 
say ; but my experience leads me to think that the 
number must be very, very small. And apart from 
the general ignorance about places of interest, but not 
of celebrity, which is not peculiar to Londoners, I 
was much impressed by the Englishman's ignorance 
of everything that did not concern him, if it were a 
little out of his daily beat, even if it were daily be- 
fore bis eyes. I was walking, one day, with an eld- 
erly London friend through precincts where he told 
me he had passed his boyhood and his youth. Going 
from one charmingly secret and mysterious court to 
another, as much in private, it would seem, as if we 
were going through a succession of back yards, I saw 



LIVING IN LONDON. 113 

on one Land a great gate-way with square posts 
surmounted with balls : it must have been twelve 
feet high. I asked my friend what it was. He hes- 
itated a moment, and then said, smiling, " Indeed, I 
don't know. Strange to say, although I 've seen it 
all my life, I never did know." Just then another 
elderly gentleman crept out of some hidden by-way 
to worm himself into another, and my friend ex- 
claimed, " Oh, here 's A ! He '11 tell us ; he 's 

lived near here all his life." But A knew no 

more about the great gate-way than my friend did 
himself; and they were not such Philistines but that 
they laughed at each other for their common igno- 
rance. 

Not only did I find this sort of ignorance, but act- 
ual ignorance of their own neighborhoods, of the 
principal streets, great thoroughfares, and public 
places. The very cabmen were not to be trusted ; 
and I had to set one right by most impudent guess- 
work when I had been in London only a week or two. 
I found that it was much better to trust to my own 
general knowledge, and to my feeling for form and 
distance, than to ask direction from any one but a 
policeman. 1 They were always right, always atten- 
tive, always civil. Before I left London I came to 
look upon every policeman that I met as a personal 
friend. 

I was lost but once, and that was after midnight, 
and because, instead of trusting to the providence 
that watches over waj'farers, I was misled and misdi- 
rected. I was on my way home from dinner at a 

1 I find this memorandum in my pocket-book: "London, September 
20th. A commissionaire, in full uniform, asked me the way to Hyde Park 
Gate." 



114 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

suburban bouse (it was tbe occasion wben the maid 
set all the doors open for me), and found myself set 
down, or turned out, at tbe Victoria Station about 
twelve o'clock. I bad been tbere only once before, 
but I wanted the walk borne ; and, confident in my 
ability to go back over any road by which I had 
passed one way, I called no cab, and set out to walk 
to ni}^ lodgings by way of St. James's Park, St. 
James's Street, and Regent Street. To my surprise, 
as I was turning into tbe street leading, as I tbought, 
to Buckingham Palace Road, I saw the cabs go- 
ing my way turn off at another street. I waited a 
few moments, and, seeing that tliey all went that 
way, I inferred that I had gone wrong, and I fol- 
lowed the lead of the cabs. I had not walked a hun- 
dred yards before I thought that I must be astray. 
That was not the street I had come through before ; 
everything was strange to me. But I reflected that 
the night was very dark, and I kept on for a while, 
the impression of strangeness and of lengthening dis- 
tance still increasing on me. The cabs were out of 
sight and out of hearing long ago. 

Just as I was about stopping to reconsider my 
ways, I saw a young man come out of a house a little 
ahead of me. When we met I asked him if that 
was the way to St. James's Park. " Oh, yes," he 
cheerily replied, " quite so, quite so. You '11 keep 
on for about off a mile, and then go straight through 
it." The distance, half a mile in addition to what I 
had walked, struck me as too great, and I asked if 
he was sure, and mentioned again that it was St. 
James's Park I wanted. " Oh, yes," he replied, 
" quite sure, quite so, quite so." I thanked him, and 
walked on. But at every step I was more and more 



LIVING IN LONDON. 115 

impressed by tlie feeling tliat I had not been driven 
through that street on my way to the station, and 
after walking full " off a mile " I saw no sign of the 
park, nor of any of its surroundings. I did, how- 
ever, see a policeman, and glad I was of the sight. 
To my inquiry how far it was to St. James's Park, 
he replied, " Wy, bless your art, sir, I dun know ow 
far it may be the way you 're a-goin'. You 're a-walk- 
in' halmost right away from it. You must turn back 
for near a mile," etc., etc. In a word, I was to go 
back to where I had first turned off. I started, but 
before I got there along caine a belated cab, which, 
thinking I had had walk enough for that night, I 
hailed and took. It was well that I did so. My 
cabman astonished me by the route he took; so much 
so that I turned and called to him, " Maddox Street, 
Maddox Street ! " " All right, sir-," he answered, 
and on he drove, up and down, through ways un- 
known to me. At last I recognized my street through 
the darkness, and was set down at my own door. 
" Why did n't you come by Buckingham Palace 
Road ? " I asked. " It 's much shorter." " I knows 
it, sir. Sof course. But the pok was shut up this 
afternoon, sir ; mendin' the road, sir." And this 
was the reason that the cabs had turned off into an- 
other street, to my misleading. 

Another little experience of this kind amused me 
and made me wonder. A gentleman had asked me 
to his house on Sunday morning. He lived in' 
Knightsbridge, and was an author of high repute. 
I had never been to Knightsbridge ; did not even 
know where it was ; but I found out that it was to 
be reached through Piccadilly, and I set out to walk 
there. I had come, I was sure, pretty near to the 



116 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

place, and I thought that I would ask to be directed 
to this gentleman's house ; less that I felt in need of 
direction, than for the sake of trying an experiment ; 
for the ignorance of London people about London 
had become a matter of observation to me, and of 
amusement. I looked about and saw a gentleman 
descending the steps of a very handsome house near 
Albert Gate, Hyde Park. I went to him and asked 
if he could tell me where my friend lived, mention- 
ing the celebrated name, of course, and adding that 
I was sure it was very near there. The gentleman 
was not only polite, but kind, as I always found peo- 
ple in England ; but he hemmed and hawed, and said 
he ought to know, yet at last was obliged to confess 
that he did n't. " But come," he said, " we '11 find 
somebody to tell you. Llere 's a crossing-sweeper ; 
he '11 be sure to know, if it 's near by." But the 
old sweeper was as ignorant as the gentleman, and 
touched his hat and looked at us with a lack-lustre 
eye. I had a delightful inward smile, said good- 
morning, and in less than three minutes I was at 
Charles Reade's door, which was not more than a 
hundred yards off, and in five minutes more I was 
sitting with him in a pleasant parlor (not a di-awing- 
room) before a sea-coal fire, talking fiddle, — a sub- 
ject which he understands better and warms up about 
more than any other except one ; and what that is no 
woman need be told who has read his novels, from 
" Peg Woffington " down to " The Cloister and the 
Hearth," and onward through the brilliant list. I 
wish to write of things, not persons, but I may say 
that I found Charles Reade far more attractive than 
authors generally are to me. He is tall, distinguished 
in person and in manner, yet easy and simple in 



LIVING IN LONDON. 117 

speech and bearing, with no more vanity than he has 
the right to have (and this I mention only because 
he is credited with more) ; and as to his companion- 
ableness, I only wished for greater opportunity of 
testing it. I did not tell him that his near neighbors 
did not know where he lived ; but I wish that I had 
done so, for the sake of the hearty laugh that we 
should have had toa-ether. 



CHAPTER VL 

A SUNDAY ON THE THAMES, 

I DID not spend a whole Sunday on the Thames ; 
but as I was gohig to morning service at the Abbey, 
and to evening service at St. Paul's, I chose to make 
the river my vfay from one to the other ; and doing 
this it seemed to me good to go leisurely over the 
whole of it within what is called the metropolitan 
district. This one is enabled to do easily and pleas- 
antly by the little steamers that ply back and forth 
constantly within those limits. The day was as beau- 
tiful as a summer sky, with its bright blue tempered 
by lazy clouds smiling with light and sailing upon 
a soft, gentle breeze, could make it ; the sense of 
Sunday seemed to pervade the air ; and even the 
great city sat in sweet solemnity at rest. When 
science has taken entire possession of mankind, and 
we find no more anything to worship, will the Sun- 
day-less man possess, in virtue of his rule of pure 
reason, any element of happiness that will quite com- 
pensate him for that calm, sweet, elevating sense — 
so delicate as to be indefinable, and yet so strong 
and penetrating as to pervade his whole being and 
seem to him to pervade all nature — of divine se- 
renity in the first day of the Christian week ? It 
is passing from us, fading gradually away, not into 
the forgotten, — for it can never be forgotten by 
tkose who have once felt it, — but into the unknown. 



A SUNDAY ON THE THAMES. 119 

There are men now living who have never known 
it ; their numbers will increase ; and at last, in the 
long by and by, there will be a generation of civ- 
ilized men who will say, that there should ever have 
been a difference between one day and another passes 
human understanding. This sense of Sunday is much 
stronger in the country than in the town ; — strange- 
ly, for the current of life is there much less visibly 
interrupted ; and it is always deepened by a sky at 
once bright and placid. And such a sky has its 
effect even in town. I felt it on this day, as I glided, 
through sunny hours and over gentle waters, past 
the solid stateliness and homely grandeur that are 
presented on the Thames side of London. 

I walked across the lower end of St. James's Park, 
passing over much the same ground that King 
Charles trod on the 30th of January when, in the 
midst of a regiment of Cromwell's Ironsides, but at- 
tended personally by his own private guard and his 
gentlemen of the bed-chamber, and with the Parlia- 
mentary colonel in command walking uncovered by 
his side, he went to lay down his handsome, weak, 
treacherous head upon the block before the outraged 
Commonwealth of England : — an event which, not- 
withstanding the Restoration and the subsequent two 
centuries of monarchy in England, is the greatest and 
most significant of modern times, and is also of all 
grand retributive public actions the most thoroughly 
and characteristically English. Tyrants have been 
put to death or driven from their thrones at other 
times and by other peoples ; but then for the first 
time, and first by men of English blood and speech, 
was a tyrant solemnly and formally tried like an ac- 
cused criminal, condemned as a criminal, and put to 



•120 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

death in execution of a warrant issuing from a court 
constituted by the highest power in the land. Com- 
pared with this high-handed justice the assassination 
of a Cffisar is like a brawl among "high-toned " poli- 
ticians, and the expulsion of the Bourbons the chance 
consequence of a great popular tumult. And in this 
was its endless worth and its significance ; and hence 
it was that from that time there was a new tenure 
of kingship. Then for the first time the great law 
of government was written, — that it should be for 
the best interests of the governed; and it was writ- 
ten in the blood of a king. This was the one boon 
of that great act to England, to the English race, to 
all civilized Christendom ; for politically the behead- 
ing of Charles was a blunder ; and the Common- 
wealth, after living an artificial life for a few years, 
died an inevitable death, because it was born out of 
due time. 

None the less because it was Sunday did I find 
the cows at the place towards the lower end of the 
park, whither I strolled, and where they and their 
predecessors have stood day after day for centuries, 
professing to give new milk to visitors thirsting for 
this rustic beverage, either for its own sake, or that 
it might by its associations enhance the rural effect 
of the meadows and the trees. I did not drink of 
the product of their maternal founts ; but my expe- 
rience leads me to the unhesitating conclusion that if 
those cows give milk instead of milk-and-water they, 
must be of a breed which, or the product of which, 
cannot be found in Middlesex without St. James's 
Park. The milk of London is a little thicker, a little 
more opaque, and a little whiter than its fog. Whether 
or no it is more nourishing I shall not venture to say. 



A SUNDAY ON THE THAMES. 121 

Probably tliese cows do give milk-and-water, and pro- 
duce instinctively, as. becomes metropolitan British 
kine, tlieir article of trade ready adulterated. For, 
many times as I passed the place where they stand, I 
never saw man, woman, or child drinking ; and I am 
sure that if .they gave real milk there would at least 
be a procession to them of mothers 'and nurses with 
their weanlings. They seemed to be of the homely 
vaiiety known as the red cow, to which belonged she 
of the crumpled horn and she that jumped over the 
moon. And if this were so it is yet another witness 
to the perpetuity of things in England : for the fa- 
cetious Tom Brown, who lived and wrote in the days 
of James II., tells of the intrusion of the milk-folks 
upon the strollers through the Green Walk with the 
cry, " A can of milk, ladies ! A can of red cow's 
milk, sir ! " 

I could not but think that if kine could communi- 
cate their thoughts there would be in that little knot 
of horned creatures a tradition of the looks of Charles 
I. and of Cromwell, and of Charles II. and of the 
Duchess of Cleveland, and of Nell Gwynne, and of 
dear, vain, clever, self-candid, close-fisted, kind-heart- 
ed Pepys, and of the beautiful Gunnings, and of 
the captivating, high-tempered Sarah Jennings, who 
could cut oft" her own auburn hair to spite the Duke 
of Marlborough, and fling it into his face, and of the 
Duchess of Devonshire, who kissed the butcher and 
wore the hat, and of all those noted beauties, wits, 
gallants, and heroes whose names and traits are the 
gilded flies in the amber of English literature. For 
there probably has been uo time since the park ceased 
to be a royal chase when there was not at least some 
one of the herd, and probably more, that could have 



122 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

learned all these things in direct line of ti'adition from 
predecessors. So, to be sure, the same is true of the 
men and the women of London ; but the directness 
of such a course of transmission was brought more 
home to me in considering these cattle, as they stood 
there, the representatives and perpetuators of a little 
custom, older than any commonwealth, in one of the 
richest, most populous, and most powerful countries 
of the earth. 

Chewing the cud of my fancies, I passed out of the 
park, and soon was at the Abbey door ; but not soon 
was 1 much farther. I had not troubled myself upon 
the score of punctuality ; and being a few minutes 
late I found the Abbey — that part of it which is 
used for service — full, even to the crowding of the 
aisles down to the very doors. I managed to squeeze 
myself in, but was obliged to stand, and moreover to 
be leaned against like a post, through service and 
through sermon. In these I found no noteworthy 
milikeness, even of a minor sort, to what I had been 
accustomed to hear from my boyhood. The changes 
in the language of the Book of Common Prayer to 
adapt it to the political constitution and the social 
condition of the United States of America are so few 
and so slight that they must be closely watched for 
to be detected. The preacher was Canon Duckworth, 
canon in residence, who reminded me in voice, in 
accent, and in manner very much, and somewhat in 
person, although he was less ruddy, of a distinguished 
clergyman of the same church in New York, and 
whose sermon was the same sensible, gentleman-like, 
moderately high-church talk which may be heard 
from half a dozen pulpits in that city every Sunday. 
Not every one, however, of those who preach them. 



A SUNDAY ON THE THAMES. 123 

or the like of them in England, has Canon Duck- 
worth's rich, vibrating voice and fine, dignified pres- 
ence. The long hood of colored silk that he wore 
(his was crimson), like all English clergymen that I 
saw within the chancel, was not, as I find many per- 
sons suppose it to be, an article of ecclesiastical cos- 
tume. It was merely his master's hood, —that which 
belonged to him as Master of Arts. The different 
colors of the linings of these academic hoods indicate 
the degree of the wearer and the university by which 
it was bestowed. ■ They are worn by university 
"clerks" on all formal occasions. 

After the sermon there was an administration of 
the communion, and. all persons who were not par- 
takers were required to leave the church. The ex- 
odus was very slow. Even after the throng was 
thinned and movement was easy, many lingered, 
looking up into the mysterious beauty of that noble 
nave. These the vergers did not hesitate to hasten, 
addressing them in some cases A^ery roughly, as I 
thought, and even putting their hands upon their 
shoulders ; but on my telling one of them that al- 
though I did not mean to commune I should like to 
remain during the service, he with ready civility, and 
with no shilling-expectant expression of countenance, 
took me to a seat within a gate and very near the 
outer rails. In this service, too, I found nothing pe- 
culiar to the place or to the building, — indeed, how 
could there well be? — but I observed that certain of 
the communicants, as they passed through the railing 
on their way to the table (which they, I suj^pose, 
would call the altar), and as they returned, carried 
their hands upright before them, holding the palms 
closely together and bowing their heads over them, 



124 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

with an air which conveyed the impression that they 
thoiight they were behaving like the saints in an altar- 
jDiece or in a missaL Perhaps I might have observed 
the same practice at home if my church-going had 
been more frequent since the outbreak of "ritualism." 

It was strange, as I came out from such a solemn 
service in that venerable and sacred pile, and strongly 
indicative of the political position of the church in 
England, to be met just outside the door by a man 
who carried under his arm a liuge bundle of hand- 
bills, calling a meeting and making a protest about 
some mu.nicipal matter. These he distributed freely 
to the communicants, as they issued from the cele- 
bration of the mystery, who took them as a matter 
of course into the same hands which had been pressed 
together with such ascetic fervor only a few minutes 
before, and, glancing at them, put them for the most 
part carefully into their pockets. We know that the 
English Church is a part of the government of Eng- 
land ; but its peculiar place is shown by practices 
which to us would seem highly indecorous. In the 
rural counties I saw posted on the doors of parish 
churches — beautiful with the beauty of a lost in- 
spiration, and venerable with the historic associations 
of centuries thick with acts of import — notices of 
those persons in the parish who had taken out licenses 
to keep dogs ; the list being always led by the name 
of the lord of the manor. There this was no sacri- 
lege. A parish in England is a political and legal 
entity, with material boundaries within which cer- 
tain officers have power ; and the parish church is 
its moral centre. Why, therefore, should not the 
licenses to keep dogs be announced upon its doors ? 

Soon after leaving the Abbey I was at the river- 



A SUNDAY ON THE THAMES. 125 

side ; and in a minute or- two along came a small 
black steamer, in length about twice that of the little 
tug-boats that run puffing and bustling about New 
York harbor, and no wider. It seemed to me more 
than simple, indeed almost rude in its bare discom- 
fort ; and certainly it was as far from anything gay 
or festive in appearance as such a boat could be. The 
absence of bright paint and gilding, and of all that 
glare of decoration which it is thought necessary to 
make "Americans" pay for, commended the little 
craft to my favor ; but I thought that without these 
it yet might have been made a little less coarse and 
much more comfortable. On the dingy deck were 
some benches or long settles of unmitigated wood ; 
and that was all. There was not even an awning ; 
but perhaps awuings would interfere with the vailing 
of the funnel as these boats pass under the bridges, 
and they might perhaps also be in danger of fire from 
the small cinders that then escape. The passengers, 
in number about a score, were all of what would be 
called in' England the lower-middle class, with one 
exception, a fine-looking man, manifestly a " gentle- 
man," and with an unmistakable military air. 

•As I sat upon my hard seat, worn shiny by the sit- 
ting of countless predecessors, and looked around 
upon my fellow-passengers, I was impressed by the 
stolidity of their faces. The beauty of the sky, the 
soft, fresh breeze, the motion, the fact that it was a 
holiday, a fine Sunday, seemed to awaken no glow of 
feeling in their bosoms. And yet they were, most of 
them, plainly pleasure-seekers. As we moved swiftly 
on (I had taken an up boat) we soon passed over 
toward the Surrey side of the river. Erelong an 
elderly woman by whom I sat turned to me, and, 



126 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

pointing out at some distance alieacl on our left a 
square tower, the familiar outlines of which had at- 
tracted my attention some minutes before, asked, 
" Wot buildin 's that there ? " " Lambeth, madam ; 
the Archbishop of Canterbury's palace." " The 
Harchbishop o' Cantubbury ! Well, well ! deary me ! 
A many times as I 've . bin on the river, I never see 
that afore." To be asked such a question by a Lon- 
doner in my first half hour upon the Thames aston- 
ished me, and the confession that followed it was 
amazing; for Lambeth palace is almost opposite 
Westminster. This was within the first fortnight 
after my arrival in England, and although, as 1 have 
already mentioned, I met with an exhibition of this 
kind of ignorance even before I set foot on English 
ground, I was not yet prepared for quite such an ex- 
ample. Before another fortnight had passed I had 
learned better. 

As I turned to look at the questioner, I saw that 
she was a neatly-dressed, obese female, and that she 
was accompanied by a neatly-dressed, obese man, who 
plainly was her husband. The couple had lived to- 
gether a long while ; they had grown old together ; 
they had grown fat together ; together they had sunk, 
year after year, deeper into a slough of stupidity ; 
together they had, as they passed through the 
world and life, become more and more ignorant of 
the one, and more and more indifferent to all of the 
other, except eating and drinking and the little round 
of their daily duties that enabled them to eat and 
drink. Their faces had grown like each other, not 
only in expression but in form. The noses had be- 
come more shapeless ; the chinless jaws had swelled 
and rounded imperceptibly into the short, thick neck. 



A SUNDAY ON THE THAMES. 127 

Those faces probably had once expressed some of the 
vivacity of youth ; but this had passed away, and 
nothing, no trace of thought or feeling, had come into 
its place, — only fat ; a greasy witness of content ; 
and the result was two great sleepy moons of flabby 
flesh pierced here and there by orifices for animal uses. 
I made surreptitiously an outline sketch of their two 
faces, as they sat side by side staring stupidly before 
them ; and it looked like two Bourbon heads on a 
medal. He was one of those long-bodied, sliort-legged 
Englishmen who are framed with facilities for a great 
development of paunch. Man and wife were about 
the same height ; and at the next landing they got 
up and waddled off together. I laughed within my- 
self, as I am laughing now; and yet why should I 
have sat there and scoffed at those good folk for be- 
ing what nature and circumstance had made them? 

Of a very different fabric in every way was the 
military-looking man whom I have already men- 
tioned. He was tall and strong, although not stout ; 
a well-made, good-looking man, with a certain con- 
sciousness of good looks not uncommon among hand- 
some Englishmen, and not unpleasant. His dress 
showed, that union of sobriety with scrupulous neat- 
ness and snugness which is characteristic of the Eng- 
lishman of the upper classes. 

He alone of all my male fellow-passengers kept 
me in countenance in my chimney-pot hat. The 
round-topped hat, called "wide awake," or what not, 
has become so common in London that a crowd looked 
down upon from window or from 'bus seems like a 
swarm of great black beetles. I walked toward this 
gentleman, thinking that I would speak to him if he 
appeared willing ; but he dismissed my doubts by 



128 ■ ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

speaking first. Brief as my experience in England 
had been, this did not surprise me ; for I had ah^eady 
learned that English folk — women as well as men — 
are free in their intercourse with strangers 'to a de- 
gree that made me wonder whence came their rep- 
utation for gruff reserve. I should say that the 
chances of a pleasant chat with a fellow-traveler in 
England compared with those in the United States 
were as seven to three. I have again and again trav- 
eled from New York to Boston, and from New York 
to Washington and back (both journeys being of 
about two hundred and thirty miles each waj^), with- 
out having one word spoken to me by a stranger, al- 
though my journeys have mostly been by daylight ; 
but in England I never went a dozen miles in com- 
pany with other people without pleasant talk with 
one or more of them. Nor is such intercourse lim- 
ited to traveling ; there is a freedom of intercourse 
there to which we are comparative strangers ; this, 
notwithstanding the visible limitations and restraints 
of rank, — perhaps rather by reason of them. 

We sat down and talked as the boat glided swiftly 
up the river, the banks of which became gradually 
more suburban in appearance. The Thauies, wher 
ever I saw it, whether below London Bridge, or above 
that landmark and within the metropolitan district, 
or beyond, where it passes Kew and Isleworth and 
Twickenham and Richmond and Hampton, is re- 
markable for its character. It is nowhere common- 
looking ; and the variety of its traits within a few 
miles surprises the eye at every stage with new de- 
light. From the wide-expanding shores, the vast 
gloomy docks, the huge black hulls, and the strange, 
clumsy lighter craft of the Pool and Limehouse 



A SUNDAY ON THE THAMES. 129 

Beach, past the stately magnificence of the embank- 
ment and the Abbey, witli the Houses of Parliament 
on one side, and Lambeth on the other, up to the en- 
chanting rural scene at Richmond, is not farther than 
it is from one village to another one just like it, 
through miles of sameness upon the Hudson. 

My talk with my temporary companion was the 
mere chat of fellow-travelers under a bright sky ; but 
even he managed to illustrate that narrowness of 
knowledge of which I found so many examples. As 
we looked off toward the west end of the town, there 
were in sight three or four rows of new houses, all 
unfinished, and some not yet roofed. He spoke of 
" so much buildin' goin' on " and " sellin' houses," 
and wondered how it was, and why gentlemen built 
houses and sold them. Thereupon I told him of the 
associations of builders, masons, carpenters, and the 
4ike, who built houses by a sort of club arrangement, 
and had their pay in an interest in the houses, which 
they sold at a good profit. Now this I merely re- 
membered having read some two or three years before 
in the London Building News. ^It was nothing in 
me to know it ; the remarkable thing was that a 
Yankee, hardly a fortnight in England, should be 
called upon to tell it to an intelligent Englishman.'^' 

Our little boat soon reached her upper landing, 
and then turned back. I went down the river to 
London Bridge, and there, after visiting the Monu- 
ment and looking at the plain and unpretending 
solidity of the warehouses, which had the look of 
holding untold wealth, and after loitering about the 
murky purlieus of Thames Street, I crossed the 
bridge and was in Southwark. But of course T;he 
bridge was like a short street across the river (it 



130 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

used to be a street with houses on either side), and 
one end of it was much the same as the other. In 
the people that I met, who were generally of the 
lower classes, there was a pleasant appearance of ho- 
mogeneousness. They were all English people ; and 
'the speech that I heard, although it was not culti- 
vated and was sometimes even rude, was English. I 
heard no brogue nor other transformation of my 
mother tongue. Little else attracted my attention, 
except the general inferiority of the men in height 
and weight to those we see in New England, and 
the rarity of good looks, not to say of beauty, in 
the women. They were all plainly in their Sunday 
clothes, which did not much become them, and in 
which they were at once much set up and ill at ease. 

Not far from here I encountered a flock of girls 
between eight and twelve years old, who proved to 
belong to the Bridgewater School. They were dressed 
in blue and white, with straw bonnets trimmed with 
blue. They were neat, and looked comfortable and 
happy ; and some of the elder girls with whom I 
talked said that they were so. The school contained 
forty-two girls and sixty-five boys. The best that I 
learned about it was that the girls made their own 
dresses, and were taught every _ afternoon to sew by 
hand. But I looked in vain among them for the 
rosy, golden-haired, blue-eyed cherubs which I had 
been led to suppose were as thick in England as in 
an antique altar-piece. 

On my way to St. James's Park I had stopped at 
a little coster-monger's stand and bought an apple, 
merely for the sake of a few words with the man and 
his wife, who were both in attendance. I took up an 
apple carelessly as I was going away, when the man 



A SUNDAY ON THE THAMES. 131 

said, " No, sir, don't take that ; it 's no good. Let 
me get you a better ; " and he picked out one of the 
best he could find. He appeared pleased when I 
thanked hira and said that was a good one. Un- 
gratefully, I gave the fruit to the first urchin I met ; 
for although I might have been willing to walk down 
St. James's Street munching an apple on a Sunday 
morning, it was not for an English apple that I would 
have done so. But none the less I reflected that the 
like of that had never happened to me in my boy- 
hood, when I did buy apples to eat them anywhere, 
in doors or out of doors ; and I thought that most 
persons in trade would not have regarded that trans- 
action as " business " on the part of my coster-mon- 
ger. If he could " work off " his poor stock first, at 
good prices, he should do so, and — caveat emptor. 
I do not mean to imply that all coster-mongers in 
England are like him ; but, notwithstanding all that 
we hear about the tricks of British traders, adultera- 
tion, and the like, I will say that his was the spirit 
which seemed to me to prevail among the retail deal- 
ers of whom I bought in England. The seller seemed 
to be willing to take some trouble to please me, and 
— without making any fuss about it — to be pleased 
when I was pleased. 

Not far from the Southwark end of London Bridge 
I passed a little fruiter's stall. It was plainly a tem- 
porary affair set up for the Sunday trade ; but in it 
were hanging some bunches of very fine white grapes, 
and I bought some that I might take them down to 
the river-side and eat them. They were only eight 
pence a pound. Down to the river-side I went, and, 
finding an old deserted boat or scow, I seated myself 
upon it, and ate my grapes and flung the skins into 



132 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

the water, as it ebbed swiftly past me, but gently 
and almost without a ripple. As I lay there the 
beauty of the day began to sink into my soul. The 
air had a softness that was new to me, and which yet 
I felt that I was born to breathe. The light in the 
low, swelling, slowly moving clouds seemed to come 
from a heaven that I once believed was beyond the 
sky, and did not smite my eyes with blindness as I 
looked upward. The stillness in such a place im- 
pressed me, and took possession of me. There was 
not a sound, except the distant plash of the wheels of 
one of the little steamers, and a faint laugh borne 
lightly down from the parapet of the bridge. And 
there lay before me, stretching either way beyond my 
sight, the great, silent city, — London, the metropolis 
of my race ; the typical city of my boyhood's dreams 
and my manhood's musings ; the port from which my 
forefather had set sail two hundred and fifty years 
ago, to help to make a new England beyond the sea ; 
the place whose name was upon all the books that I 
had loved to read ; the scene of all the great histor- 
ical events by which I had been most deepl}^ moved. 
It was worth the Atlantic voyage to enjoy that vis- 
ion in that silent hour. Within my range of sight, 
as I turned my head, were the square turrets of the 
Tower and the pinnacles of Westminster ; and I 
must have been made of duller stuff than most of 
that which either came from or remained in Eng- 
land between 1620 and 1645 not to be stii-red by the 
thoughts of what had passed, of mighty moment to 
my people, at those two places, or between them. 
Many of those events flitted through my mind ; but 
that which settled in it and took possession of it was 
the return of Hampden and Pym and the other Five 



A SUNDAY ON THE THAMES. 133 

Membevs who had fled fi'om Westminster to London 
before Kino- Charles and his halberdiers. From where 
I sat, had I sat there on the 11th of January, 1642, 
I might have seen that now calm and almost vacant 
stretch of water swarming with wherries and deco- 
rated barges outside two lines of armed vessels that 
began at London Bridge and ended at Wesminster, 
while up the river, between this guard of honor, 
sailed to Westminster a ship bearing the five men 
whose safety was the pledge of English liberty ; and 
along that opposite bank, now silent and almost de- 
serted (not indeed the Embankment, but the Strand, 
then the river street, as its name indicates), marched 
the trained-bands of London, with the sheriffs and all 
the city magnates and the shouting citizens, amid the 
booming of guns, the roll of drums, and the blare of 
trumpets. It was London that received and sheltered 
the Five Members ; it was London that protected 
them against the king ; it was London that carried 
them back in triumph past Whitehall, then purged 
of its royal tyrant, to resume their seats at West- 
minster, at the command of the outraged but un- 
daunted House of Commons. That was the bright- 
est, greatest day in London's liistory ; that the most 
memorable pageant of the many memorable seen 
upon the bosom of old Thames. I should not have 
enjoyed this vision and these thoughts if I had not 
lusted for those grapes, and for the pleasure of eating 
them to the music of the rippling water. 

Again I took a steamer and went up the river and 
retuj-ned, that I might mark well the bulwarks and 
the palaces of this royal city, and see it all from 
the outside by daylight ; and also that I might enjoy 
the day, which was beautiful with a rich, soft, cool 



134 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

beauty unknown to the land from wliicliwe are driv- 
ing the Sitting Bulls and Squatting Bears, to whose 
coarse constitutions and rude perceptions the fierce 
glories of its sides are- best adapted. On the return 
trip the few passengers thinned rapidly away, so that 
at Charing Cross (I believe it was) every one but 
myself went ashore ; and as no one came on board I 
was left actually alone upon the deck. This did not 
suit me, for I wanted to see the people as well as the 
place ; and I too, just in time, went hastily ashore to • 
Avait for another steamer. 

The landings are made at long, floating piers or 
platforms ; and upon one of these I walked up and 
down, after having bought another ticket. Erelong 
another steamer came, well loaded, and I watched the 
people as they came ashore. Thoughtlessly I turned 
and walked with the last of them toward the stairs 
by which they made their exit to the city. It was 
my first day on the Thames, and 1 had not observed 
how very brief the stoppages of the boats were : they 
touch and go. I was startled by the plash of the 
wheels, and, turning, I saw the boat in motion. In- 
stinctively I made for her, and having the length of 
the platform as the start for a running jump, I easily 
cleared the widening distance and the taifrail, and 
landed lightly on the deck. But it was a wonder 
that I was not frightened out of my jump and into 
the water ; for there was sensation and commotion 
on the boat, and cries ; two of the deck hands sprang 
forward, and stretched out their arms to catch me as 
if I had been a flying cricket-ball ; and when I was 
seen safely on the deck there were cheers, — decorous 
cheers, after the English fashion. Indeed, I was sit- 
ting comfortably down and opening a newspaper be- 



A SUNDAY ON THE THAMES. 135 

fore the little stir that I had caused was over. I did 
not read my paper ; for I was in the condition in 
which Montaigne supposed his cat might be when he 
played with her. The action of the people interested 
me quite as much as mine interested them. These 
English folk, whom I had been taught were phleg- 
matic and impassible, had been roused to visible and 
audible manifestation of excitement by an act that 
would not have caused an " American " to turn his 
head. The passengers on our crowded ferry-boats 
saw men jump on board them after they were under 
way day after day without moving a muscle, until, 
too many having jumped into the water, and too 
many of these having been drowned, we put up gates 
and chains, not long ago, to stop the performance. 
I should not take that jump again, nor should I have 
taken it then if I had stopped to think about it ; but 
I was glad that I did take it then, not for the saving 
of the five or ten minutes that I did not know what 
to do with, but for the revelation that it made to me 
of English character. 

I landed again at London Bridge, and went to 
evening service at St. Paul's, I have said before that 
this great cathedral church has no attractions for my 
eye externally, except in its dome, that heaves itself 
heavily up into the dim atmosphere ; nor has its in- 
terior to me any grand or even religious aspect. The 
service there, too, as we sat on settles under the 
dome, seemed to me entirely lacking in the impress- 
iveness of that at Westminster. The voices of the 
clergymen were indistinct, almost inaudible ; th(i 
singing sounded comparatively feeble, like the wail- 
ing of forlorn and doleful creatures in a great cave. 
The introit, although the dean was there, witli a 



136 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

stronger array of assisting clergymen, and choir boys 
in surplices, and vergers than I had seen before, 
seemed a comparatively ragged, childish perform- 
ance. I took a distaste to the whole thing, and man- 
aged to slip away between the sei-vice and tlie ser- 
mon, in which movement I fomid myself kept in 
countenance by others. 

I strolled for a little while about the silent city, 
meeting not more people than I should have met in 
Wall Street or the lower part of Broadway on a Sun- 
day afternoon. Moreover, during service the bright 
skies had darkened, and it had begun to rain ; but 
it soon stopped, and the black clouds were white 
again. Feeling hungry, I began to look about for 
a place where 1 could get luncheon. I soon found 
<nie, but the door was closed ; and this was the case 
with another, and yet another. The reason' of this, 
as I learned, was that during the hours of divine 
service all public-houses are required to be closed in 
England: another witness to the political position 
of the Established Church. I had been startled in 
the morning, while at breakfast, by hearing street 
cries, and looking from my window had seen peri- 
patetic coster-mongers uttering the inarticulate and 
incomprehensible noises by which they allure people 
to buy their wares, which seemed to me very strange 
on a Sunday morning in England ; but I found that 
everything of this kind is allowed, except during the 
hours of morning and evening service. This brought 
up to me the religious discijiline of New York in 
mj boyhood, or rather my infancy ; for I remember 
that when I, not yet five years old, was taken to 
St. George's Church, in Beekman Street, there wore 
chains stretched across the street above and below 



A SUNDAY ON THE THAMES. 137 

the church, to prevent the passing of vehicles, and 
also to keep away the carriages of those who did not 
let their beasts and their servants rest on Sunday. 
And I remember in the summer time, when the 
church doors were open, the faint, distant stamp of 
the waiting horses mingling drowsily with the mo- 
notonous sing-song of the worthy clergyman, and 
lulling my wearied little brain to slumber that was 
broken only by the burst of the great organ. Think 
how the liberty-loving people of a city which has 
produced a Tweed for its chief manager and a Fer- 
nando Wood for its mayor and its representative 
would now endure chains across a street to prevent 
them from disturbing the devotions of others ! The 
right to obstruct and mar our streets is now only to 
be had by great corporations who are rich enough to 
pa}' (but not us) handsomely for the privilege. 

Erelong the prescribed hour had gone by, and the 
doors of the churches and of the eating-houses and 
the tap-rooms were opened, and more people ap- 
peared in the streets. I went to two or three of the 
latter, but did not go in. They repelled me ; they 
were in such out-of-the-way places, they were so 
small, so unsightly, so rude and dirty; and, more- 
over, there was an "uncanny " air about them that 
took away my appetite. At last, however, I saw an 
entrance that attracted me, and I went in, expecting 
to find myself on the threshold or in the porch, at 
least, of an eating-house. But I was only at the 
street end of a long, narrow passage, which was like 
an alley. This I followed to a place where there 
were doors ; and by the exercise of some ingenuity I 
discovered the public-house, which, like so many pub- 
lic places in English cities, seemed to shrink into 
-the remotest recesses of privacy. 



138 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

It was a queer-looking place. The room was very- 
small. In the open space a table for six people 
could not have been set conveniently. On one side 
was a 'Small, semicircular bar, — so small that the 
stout publican behind it seemed to be standing in a 
barrel out of whicli lie produced liis liquors. On an- 
other side, nearly at right angles, was a large win- 
dow opening into a room, half tap-room, half kitchen, 
where two bar-maids waited. On the broad ledge of 
this window were two or three cold joints. Into the 
room, on another side, a singular structure projected 
itself. It had three sides, and was sashed, and in fact 
was an indoor bay-window. Its floor was about 
three feet above that of the principal room, and it 
was about eight feet across. It was entered by steps 
along-side the bar, and also from behind by a door 
on its own level. It was carpeted, and furnished 
with a table and two chairs. In one of the chairs 
sat a woman who was evidently the hostess. She 
was a large woman, red of face, rotund of figure ; 
but indeed as to figure she had long ceased to be 
of any particular shape. As to the dress of her, she 
was very imposing. She wore a gown of pale lilac- 
purple moire antique; and her every movement be- 
trayed a consciousness that it was very moire and, al- 
though quite fresh, very antique. She was right. I 
never before saw such an obtrusive garment. It in- 
vaded all the senses ; for it was highly perfumed and 
so stiff that the frou-frou of it was like the crackling 
of stout wrapping-paper. She wore a lace cap (real, 
O female reader!), and a lace collar confined by an 
enormous and brilliant brooch. Around her neck 
was a thick, dull-gold chain, by which hung a locket 
that would have served a fop of George II. 's time for 



A SUNDAY ON THE THAMES. 139 

a snuff-box ; in her shapeless ears were glaring, jin- 
gling pendants : and her fat fingers flashed with 
rings. She spoke familiarly with the man in the 
bar, who came out of his pen once in a while and 
stumped about the place ; but whether he was her 
husband, or she intended him to be so at some fut- 
ure time, I could not quite make out. But I sus- 
pected, from a certain subdued air about him, that 
his case was the former ; and besides, how other- 
wise such a goi'geous creature could look with favor 
upon a little semi-bald-headed, paunchy fellow in his 
shirt sleeves was quite incomprehensible. 

I asked for some beef and a glass of Burton ale, 
which were soon cheerily placed before me by one 
of the bar-maids. Both were excellent ; but I was 
obliged to stand as I ate and drank, and indeed half 
a dozen persons on chairs would have so filled up 
the place that it would have been impassable. I 
soon drained my glass, and asked for another. When 
it was brought me, at the first sip I set it down, and 
said, " That 's not the same ale ; and it 's not Bur- 
ton." It proved that the bar-maid who had first 
served me did not fill my glass the second time, and 
that the other had by mistake done so from the wrong 
tap. But I was amused by the impression that I 
had plainly made upon these Hebes by my quick de- 
tection of the error. The mistake was of course 
corrected at once, with apologies ; but then I saw 
them put their heads together and look at me with 
the great respect due to a man who was not to be 
imposed upon in the matter of ale, to my great enjoy- 
ment. But why laugh at these poor she-tapsters ? 
Are there not men, gentlemen, who have " a reputa- 
tion " as wine tasters, and who are " authorities " on 



140 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

the subject, and who are mightily set up because 
thereof? I remember that, once dining at the table 
of a newly rich man, he told me, as he gave me some 
Cos, that one of his friends, when in Europe, had 
some wine set before him as to which there were seri- 
ous doubts ; and he, tasting it, said at once that it 
was Cos, which proved 'to be true. "And that, you 
know," said Lucullus, " was a great thing for him." 
I cannot see how any one who has once drunk either 
Cos or castor-oil can ever mistake its flavor; but why 
a man should be respected because he knows the taste 
of what he eats and drinks, and makes a talk about 
it, it is not very easy to discover. In England, how- 
ever, such accomplishment seems to be more highly 
prized than it is with us ; or I should rather say that 
there are more people there who respect it, — both 
in great dining-rooms and in little tap-rooms. 

While I was still occupied with my beef and beer, 
there entered to the hostess a visitor, another stout 
middle-aged woman richly arrayed in black silk. 
Indeed, when she had mounted the steps and got, 
somewhat in the manner of a burglary, into the lit- 
tle bay-window, it was an engineer's problem to ^de- 
termine how two such women in two such silk dresses 
could both be and move in that narrow space. The 
sweep of their two trains was |)ortentous. Each was 
a threatening silken comet. But the hostess had 
the happiness of far eclipsing the other. The sheen 
and the shimmer of that lilac silk were not to be 
dimmed by the approach of any black, however much 
it might have " cost a yard." There was large per- 
formance in the way of ceremony and courtesying, 
which, owing to the formation of the place, had the 
air of private theatricals, and for which I, another 



A SUNDAY ON THE THAMES. 141 

hungry man, and the bar-maids were the audience. 

" Ow do you do, Mrs. ? I ope you 're well." 

" Quite well, Mrs. , an' I opes you 're the same." 

" Thenk you ; my 'elltli 's very good. Could I hoffer 

you anythink ? " " Ho, no, my dear Mrs. , not 

on hany account." " Ho, now, indeed you must 
obleege me by takin' a little somethink. Juss a drop 

o' sherry, now, an' a biscuit." "• Well, Mrs. , 

since you 're so wery pressin', I think I will." This 
performance went on amid contortions of civility. 
Indeed, these large ladies threatened the very exist- 
ence of the little structure by the transaction of their 
tremendous courtesies ; and I expected to see certain 
rearward portions of the moir^ antique and of the 
black silk appear through the riven glass on either 
side. Was the contrast between the fine dresses of 
these women and their affectation of fine manners on 
the one side, and their reality and what would have 
been truly becoming to them on the other, peculiar 
to England ? I am inclined to think not. The pe- 
culiarity was that the play was played before me on 
Sunday on a little stage in a little tap-room. 

Leaving these grandes dames to the discussion of 
their sherry and biscuit, I walked home, and after a 
solitary dinner on English mutton slept soundly upon 
my first Sunday in London. 



. CHAPTER VII, 

A DAY AT WINDSOE. 

It was on a bright October mornmg that I took 
an early train from London to Windsor. No autum- 
nal tints had yet touched the trees, which stood full 
clad in vivid green, nor was the grass a blade thin- 
ner or a shade paler than it was in summer. The 
sky was almost cloudless, and of that pale gray- 
blue which is its brightest color between the narrow 
seas. I never saw the heaven quite void of clouds in 
England; and I am sure that if I had seen it so I 
should not have liked it better. The wind — but 
there did not seem to be any wind, not even a breeze, 
only a gentle motion of soft air which stirred just 
enough to make you conscious of its presence. There 
was not that glow above and that rich, deep-hued 
splendor below that make the autumn of New Eng- 
land appear so glorious ; but the absence of those 
bright colors which our year, like a dolphin, takes 
on as it is dying was more than made up for me by 
the fullness of life and the freshness of beauty which, 
when we had left the city behind us, I saw all around 
me. I admit that I am quite willing to do without 
any evidences of decay, however brilliant may be its 
phosphorescence, and that there is no flower which 
compensates me for the loss of June roses. 
. In the approach to Windsor there is nothing re- 
markable ; but ru.ral England under a bright sky is 



A DAY AT WINDSOR. . 143 

always beautiful ; and it was after as pleasant an 
hour as railway traveling will permit that I left the 
train at the town which clusters around the base of 
England's royal castle. 

What a little place ! It seemed hardly big enough 
to hold so fat a man as Falstaff. And then it is so 
small for its age. Think that it should have been 
there these eight hundred years, and j^et have grown 
no larger ! Moreover, there is the surprise of find- 
ing in such a very small town such a very big castle. 
Indeed, it is absurd to say that the castle is at Wind- 
sor: it is Windsor that is at the castle. But the 
smallness of the town, its age, and its apparent inca- 
pacity for becoming any larger were all charms in 
my eyes. It was a new and delightful sensation in 
England, — the coming upon places that were fin- 
ished, that were neither great nor growing, and that 
plainly had no enterprise. It gave rest to a certain 
stunned and weary feeling wdiich comes upon one in 
the streets of New York, and in the streets of other 
places which are daily, with more or less success, 
doing all they can to be like New York, that dash- 
ing, dirty, demirep of cities. 

Before going to the castle I walked about the town 
a little, — not, however, with any Shakespearean pur- 
pose. Not in the town, nor in the park, nor in the 
neighborhood did I make passionate pilgrimage to 
the scenes of Shakespeare's only comedy of English 
life. To what good end or pleasant thought should 
I have done so ? Among the places and objects at 
Windsor that Shakespeare has mentioned there is 
now not one which is what he saw or had in mind, or 
which he himself would recognize were he brought 
back to earth again. Heme's oak is gone ; and if it 



144 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

were, not, in what would it differ from any other old 
oak ? And why should I go to Frogmore simply be- 
cause it is mentioned in " The Merry Wives " ? If 
places have any beauty or any real charm of associa- 
tion, the sight of them is a source of a great and a 
pure pleasure. Could I have seen the house that 
Shakespeare had in mind as Ford's, or that might 
have been Ford's house ; could I have seen Mistress 
Ford or sweet Anne Page, or portraits of the women 
that stood to Shakespeare as models for those person- 
ages, — if he had any models, — I would gladly have 
gone twenty miles afoot to enjoy the sight; but since 
I could not, since I could see nothing of the sort, not 
even the " bare ruined choirs where late the sweet 
birds sang," what need to follow the shadow of an 
empty name ! Therefore I left the places mentioned 
in " The Merry Wives " unvisited. 

In Windsor itself I found little of interest. The 
town is not new, bia.'t it is modern. Its Elizabethan 
features have all been improved away. It is chiefly 
filled with people who live upon the castle, and upon 
the railway that brings other people to the castle. 
The glorifying beams of royalty fall upon every- 
thing. On a little hut by the river-side I saw a 
sign, "All Kinds of Bait. Patronized by the Royal 
Family ; " and I had some comfort in picturing to 
myself the Prince of Wales and the Dukes of Edin- 
burgh and Connaught going there for worms and 
minnows when they went out fishing on half holi- 
days, — although, poor fellows, I fear they never had 
the true boyish pleasure of carrying their worms, not 
exactly, like Mr. Punch's boy, in their mouths, but 
in boxes in their own pockets, and of putting them 
on the hooks themselves, and then of taking home a 



A DAY AT WINDSOR. 145 

good catch of fish for the royal breakfast-table. Who 
would be a prmce, to have his hook baited by an at- 
tendant, and his gun loaded by a game-keeper ! Dig- 
nity in pleasure dulls the edge of enjoyment. But 
nevertheless a bait-house patronized by the royal 
family was a thing to see. 

In a little public-house in a by-street I saw in the 
window a card : " Bean Feasts and Parties Supplied." 
This I hailed as evidence that pork and beans came 
into New England with the Mayflower, quite as trust- 
worthy, to say the least, as that on which some noble 
families are said to have come into Old England 
with the Conqueror. And I was also glad to see in 
it evidence that the bean-eaters had their little mer- 
rymakings and picnickings, not unlike those festivals 
which produce here a dreadful variety of iced-cream 
and consequent stomachic derangements for Sunday- 
school children. 

In the course of my stroll I came upon a house 
which had recently been burned, the ruins of which 
stood just as they had been left by the fire. The 
house had not been wholly destroyed, and the skele- 
ton still held together. It seemed to have been built 
some forty or fifty years ago. I was surprised at the 
flimsiness of its construction. The bricks were poor 
and the mortar was bad ; the beams were out of pro- 
portion, small, and badly joined; the tenon and mor- 
tise work was not only clumsy, but weak and insuffi.- 
cient. A house so built may be found anywhere ; 
and I should not mention this but as the occasion of 
remarking that I found the same inferior builder's 
work wherever I went in Eno'land. Accordina; to 
my observation, modern English houses, unless they 
are built with special care and unusual expense, are 

10 



146 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

very slightly put together, with bad materials and 
poor workmanship. 

It is the custom there to put up the shells of 
houses, usually three or four together, and to leave 
them to be finished according to the wishes of an in- 
tending tenant or purchaser. They ai'e called " car- 
casses." I examined many of these without finding 
one even tolerably well built. The walls brought 
to mind the scoff of Tobiah the Ammonite against 
the newly rebuilt wall of Jerusalem, — "If a fox go 
up he shall break down their stone wall," and Pa- 
nurge's declaration that a cow could destroy, in a not 
very quotable manner, six fathoms of the walls of old 
Paris. The mortar, although it had been set for 
years, would crumble under the touch of my stick, 
or even of my thumb nail. And walls of the mod- 
ern-built villa houses that I visited were rarely more 
substantial, while the joiner's work was both slight 
and coarse. I also remarked that where recent addi- 
tions had been made to the height of garden walls 
the mortar in the new part, although in general it 
was plainly ten or twenty, or even thirty, years old, 
was more like mud than like mortar. Indeed, I did 
not see in England, in a new private building of mod- 
erate pretensions, any mortar worthy of the name. 
This attracted my attention, I need hardly say, be- 
cause of the notion generally prevailing, and sedu- 
lously encouraged by British writers, that all Eng- 
lish work is distinguished from other work of its 
kind by excellence of material and thoroughness of 
workmanship ; that although it might not have ele- 
gance it was sure to be substantial. I did not find 
it so. In this respect, in many ways, I was disap- 
pointed. That such was once the character of the 



A DAY AT WINDSOR. 147 

work of English artisans and rnannfacturers I be- 
lieve is not to be disputed ; but during the last fifty 
years this glory of England seems to have departed. 

Visitors to Windsor Castle are required to register 
their names in a book before they receive the tickets 
without which they cannot pass the gate. No fee is 
expected or allowed to be taken for this preliminary 
process, which is performed at a little shop in the 
principal street of the town. I offered a half crown 
to the respectable and cheerful dame who thus 
equipped me ; but she told me, with a smile, that 
she could take nothing, but that she had guide-books 
which she could sell me. Whereupon I whipped her 
particular devil around her particular stump, to her 
entire satisfaction. As to her books, they were naught, 
as such books are most commonly. 

While I was doing this it occurred to me that I 
wanted some ginger-pop, a potation which I had not 
yet tasted, and which I would by no means have left 
England without enjoying. For in my boyhood I 
had been made thirsty by reading of the revelings of 
English boys in this exhilarating drink, just as I had 
been made hungry by reading in Scott's novels of 
knights and cavaliers devouring venison pasties. I 
asked for ginger-pop. But the lady replied with some 
dignity that she did not keep it, adding kindly and 
with gentle condescension that I might get it at a 
little shop down the street. Hereupon a cheery 
young voice broke out, " I '11 show you, sir, where 
you can get some pop." I turned, and saw a lad 
some twelve or fourteen years old, and, thanking 
him, asked him if the pop would be good. He as- 
sured me that it would, adding by way of proof, 
" All the fellows of our school ffo there." Moment- 



148 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

arily forgetful, I asked. What school ? " Why, Eton, 
of course," he replied. We went off together, and 
soon pledged each other in the fizzing fluid, which, 
to ray great disappointment, I found to be nothing 
more than poor soda-water flavored with poor ginger 
syrup. But I was well recompensed for this disillu- 
sion. My companion's views upon the subject of 
ginger-pop were different from mine, and he beamed 
and expanded under its influence. J told him that I 
had come to see the castle, and asked him some ques- 
tions about it. Of course he knew Windsor through 
and through ; and after we had chatted a while he 
offered to go with me and he my guide. 

We set off immediately, and at the castle we be- 
came part of a group or squad of visitors who were 
about to make the round of the state apartments. I 
shall not be so superfluous as to give any description 
of these apartments, which did not impress me either 
with their magnificence or their good taste. I ex- 
pected both ; I should have been satisfied with one ; 
I found neither. There was an absence of grandeur 
and stateliness in proportion and in arrangement, a 
lack both of splendor and of elegance in decoration, 
which surprised me. Nor was there any impression 
of antiquity in keeping with the age of this venerable 
palace and fortress. Two of the apartments were of 
great interest, — the Vandyke room and St. George's 
Hall. The Vandyke room is filled with portraits by 
that master-painter of gentlemen and gentlewomen. 
Of the twenty-two canvases one half are portraits of 
Charles I. or of his family. There are three of 
Charles himself ; of Henrietta Maria four, besides 
that in the family group. One wearies a little of 
Charles's handsome, high-bred, melancholy face, with 



A DAY AT WINDSOR. 149 

its peaked beard dividing the singularly elegant, but 
certainly most unmanly, Vandyke collar. And after 
all, notwithstanding Charles's beauty and his air of 
refinement, he had not a kingly look. His face lacked 
strength. The Earl of Strafford, whose portrait is 
perhaps the greatest head that Vandyke ever painted, 
looked far more kingly ; and, with all Strafford's 
faults, he was more kingly than his master. The 
most interesting of the other and not royal portraits 
are those of Tom Killigrew, of Carew", and of Van- 
dyke himself. 

St. George's Hall is interesting from the fact that 
it has upon its walls and its ceiling the arms and the 
names of all the knights of the Garter who have been 
installed since the foundation of the order. The gen- 
eral effect is that of a rich series of heraldic mosaics. 
As to the knights, there is, as Sir Pertinax Macsyco- 
phant might say, "sic an admeexture." Not that 
there was a " Jew and a beeshop," — at least there 
was no Jew's name 3^et visible when I was there in 
1876 ; but the names of men of mark and distinction 
are mingled with those of men who were merely the 
commonplace sons of commonplace fathers, inheritors 
of high rank and great estates, who but for their in- 
heritance would never have been heard of beyond the 
bounds of their own parishes, and who as simple gen- 
tlemen would have had no claim to admiration and 
little to respect. And yet the Garter is the great 
prize of life in England. To win it men will peril 
body and soul, although it is the emptiest of all dis- 
tinctions. For a knight of the Most Noble Order, 
except by his star and his garter, does not differ in 
virtue of his knighthood from any other human mor- 
tal. A peerage brings station and power and privi- 



150 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

lege and ennobling duty and opportunity ; but the 
Garter and the Golden Fleece and the Black Eagle, 
— what are they ? Can any one tell what good they 
do the man who wears them, or of what merit they 
are the sign ? They are not, like the Victoria Cross, 
or the Order of Merit, or even like that much-cheap- 
ened distinction the Legion of Honor, tokens of cour- 
age, or of ability, or of character. But a knight of 
the Garter is one of a body of not more than some 
fifty men (originally but twenty-five), who have the 
sovereign for their chief and foi'eign kings and princes 
among their number ; and therefore it is the most cov- 
eted distinction in Europe, although it means nothing, 
and the order does nothing. This hall of the order 
of St. George is two hundred feet long, but as it is 
only thirty-four feet wide its effect is not one of 
grandeur ; on the contrary, it seems like a decorated 
corridor to some really grand apartment. 

The Waterloo Chamber, although not very spa- 
cious, considering that it is one of the principal state 
apartments in the principal palace of the British sov- 
ereign, is yet a noble room. It is hung with some 
thirty or forty portraits, neai-ly all at full length,, of 
distinguished personages who were connected in some 
way with the great battle which ended Napoleon's 
career. Most of these portraits are by Sir Thomas 
Lawrence. As one looks around it, the old exclama- 
tion, " My stars and garters ! " (which was still heard 
in New England till recently, if, indeed, it is j^et ob- 
solete), is brought forcibly to mind. Such an ex- 
hibition of starred coats and gartered legs, and of 
errained robes and of human upholstery in general, 
with faces appended thereto in Lawrence's weak, 
pretty style, is not to be found elsewhere. It is 



A DAY AT WINDSOR. 151 

amusing to see that whatever the figures of the men 
may be, which are hidden by the velvet and the fur, 
their legs are all alike. Lawrence evidently had one 
pair as models, and furnished them to all his sitters 
with impartial pencil. 

It was more amusing to see the awful admiration 
with which these and other magnificences were re- 
garded by the visitors, who were all, with the single 
exception of myself, British sight-seevs of the middle 
and lower-middle classes, out on a holiday. Of the 
Vandykes they took little notice ; they were more 
disposed to admire the vast inanities of Verrio and 
Zuccarelli in the audience-chamber and the drawing- 
room. But these robed and jeweled full-length por- 
traits of kings and princes and dukes and earls, some 
of whose names they had heard, were to them mani- 
festly glimpses of glory. They were also much in- 
terested in furniture, gilded chairs and tables and 
vases, and the like. 

My Eton boy kept near me, but he had found two 
or three young companions, and when he was not 
playing good-natured cicerone to me (and he showed 
intelligence and good taste in what he said) he chat- 
ted with them. 

I saw that our official attendant fretted at this, 
particularly when the lad spoke to me. He was a 
consequential man, more like one of John Leech's 
butlers than any real butler that I saw in England. 
His squat figure was cai'efully dressed in black ; his 
shoes were polished to an obtrusive brightness, so 
that they looked like large lumps of anthracite coal ; 
and he shone at both ends, for he must have had 
half a teacupful of highly perfumed oil upon his 
straight black hair, which was coaxed into the sem- 



152 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

blance of a curl above each ear. He delivered him- 
self of his explanations with pompons dignity. At 
last, on one occasion, when my young companion 
had spoken somewhat eagerly to me, and had then 
turned to his fellows, and their tongues disturbed the 
almost awful hush with which the small crowd of 
Philistines listened to his descriptions, the man 
stopped short in the midst of an harangue, and, 
wheeling aboub upon my Eton guide, broke out, 
" Wot har you a-talkin' about ? Wot do you know 
about hanythink in the castle ? Will you be quiet 
wen hi'm a-talkin' ! 'Ow can the ladies and gentle- 
men hunderstand the castle if they can't 'ear me 
speak ? " The boy held his peace, of course ; but 
as soon as the man turned round again, looked up 
at me with a most impenitent wink, and thrust his 
tongue into his cheek with an exj^ression that, if his 
rebuker had seen it, would have made him choke 
with suppressed wrath. 

The weary round of the state apartments having 
been finished, we descended a staircase at the head 
of which our guide pointed out to us the " harmor of 
the Hearl of Hessex," and I went to St. George's 
Chapel, which, although worth seeing, seemed to me 
less so than any church of note that I visited in Eng- 
land. The monument to the Princess Chai'lotte is 
one of those elaborate exhibitions of bad taste whicli 
were put up at great expense in England at the end 
of the last century and the beginning of this. Indeed, 
I did not see in any church in the country a modern 
monument which was well designed or really beau- 
tiful. The modern monuments in Westminster Ab- 
be}^ are mostly monstrosities in marble. 

The noble round tower of Windsor Castle is its 



A DAY AT WINDSOR. 153 

chief beauty. It dominates and harmonizes all the 
other architectural features of the pile. It is the 
round tower that makes Windsor Castle imposing. 
We all know Windsor by that tower, which sits like 
a great crown upon the castle-palace of the British 
sovereigns. Up the hundred stone steps of this tower 
I went with my young Eton friend ; and if the steps 
had been a thousand I should have been well repaid 
for the ascent by the sight that greeted me on all 
sides, as I looked off from the battlements. The 
guide-books say that when the atmosphere is un 
clouded twelve counties, Middlesex. Hertford, Essex, 
Oxford, Wilts, Kent, Hants, Bedford, Sussex, Berks, 
Bucks, and Surrey, may be seen from this elevation. 
I must then have seen iny full dozen ; for although 
there were clouds, they were few and light, and them- 
selves so beautiful that I would not have given the 
sight of them for the sight of six more counties ; and 
the day was bright and clear with a soft, golden clear- 
ness. Except from Richmond Hill, off which I looked 
on such another day, I had no sight of English land 
that was to be compared with this in its beauty and 
•in its peculiarly English character. It was pictur- 
esque, but it had no striking features. Its charm 
consisted in the blending of man's work with nat- 
ure's; in the alternation of the noble and the simple; 
in the grand harmony of things which although beau- 
tiful in themselves, would not have been very strik- 
ing if alone, — like the rich interweaving of simple 
themes in great orchestral music. It was a grand 
symphony in form and color. For it seemed, like a 
symphony, to have been constructed with design, yet 
with such art that the succession and relation of its 
beauties were perfectly natural. To have disturbed 



154 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

their order, or to have regarded one without regard- 
ing the others also, would have been destructive of 
ixs highest charm, — that of the extension and conti- 
nuity of varied, self-developed beauty. I wandered 
around the great circle of the parapet, and leaning 
into the topaz-tinted air drank in delight that filled 
me with a gentle happiness. 

But I was not allowed to muse in solitude. Soon 
a warder came up to me, telescope in hand, and be- 
gan his official function. He called my attention to 
this great house and to the other, seeming to think 
that the chief pleasure in looking from Windsor 
walls consisted in seeing the seat of this or that 
nobleman. I did not take his pi-ying telescope, and 
after a word or two walked away and changed my 
point of view. Soon he followed me, and began 
again his verbal catalogue and index, and again of- 
fered me his brazen tube. Annoyed by his persist- 
ence, and wishing at once to be left alone and not to 
offend him in the performance of his office, as the 
easiest way of accomplishing my double purpose I 
listened to him a moment, took the telescope, and 
sweejDing the horizon slowly with it, handed it back - 
to him with thanks and the customary shilling. He 
took the telescope, of course, but to my surj^rise he 
refused the shilling, ^ His manner was very respect- 
ful, but equally decided. Fearing that he might 
fasten himself upon me as a gratuitous guide, I 
pressed the coin upon him on the ground that 1 had 
used his telescope. " No, indeed, sir, you did n't," 
he replied, with civil and even deferential manner. 
" I saw you did n't, and I 've done nothing for the 
tip." I yielded, and was moving away again, when, 

1 My only experience of this kind in England. 



A DAY AT WINDSOR. 155 

after looking at me a moment, he said, " I beg your 
pardon, but I think you must be an American gen- ' 
tleman. I should n't have thought it, if you had n't 
been so suspicious. American gentlemen are always 
so suspicious." 

The man's outspoken but respectful manner pleased 
me. I was a little puzzled by his epithet, but ap- 
prehended him in a moment. He had no conception 
of the feeling which made me desire to be alone, and 
supposed that I regarded him as a sort of impostor, 
who for the sake of my shilling professed to show me 
what he did not know himself. For the rest, — 'ow 
was I to hunderstand the castle if I did n't 'ear him 
speak ? Then I put myself into his hands, and let 
him show me his landscape and his country-seats ; 
and in the course of our talk I learned from him 
that "Americans" were more apt than Englishmen 
to decline his offices. This he thought was because 
they were so sharp, "bein' so accustomed, you see, 
sir, to be taken in at 'ome." That was richly worth ^ 
the shilling, which I offered him again, and which 
he now took thankfully. 

My nativity had been detected by a stranger only 
once before ; and that was by a tailor, who spoke of 
it casually as, soon after my arrival, I was trying on 
a water-proof overcoat at a shop in Regent Street. I 
asked him how he knew it. He smiled, and said, 
pointing to my coat, " I knew that coat, sir, was 
never made in England." He was right ; and I 
should have known it myself if I had seen the coat 
upon another man, although it was cut after a Lon- 
don pattern, and was made of English cloth by an 
English tailor. This stamp of nationality in handi- 
work is universally borne. Why it is so seems almost 



166 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

unaccountable. But a book, for example, bound in 
New York or at Riverside by an English binder, with 
English tools and English materials, after an English 
pattern carefully copied, can be distinguished from a 
London-bound book almost at a glance by an observ- 
ant book- lover. It may be as well-bound, or better, 
but it will not be precisely the same. So a London- 
made watch-case copied here line for line, and in tint 
of metal to a shade, will be easily distinguishable from 
the original, even although the pattern is " engine- 
tuimed " and worked by a machine in both cases. 
The critic would not perhaps find a ready reason for 
his discrimination, and might find it impossible to 
give one ; but none the less he would be safe in 
making it, 

Jnst as I was turning from my warder, he said, 
" If you like old churches, sir, yonder 's one that 's 
one of the three or four oldest in the kingdom, they 
say, — St. Andrew's of Clewer ; " and he pointed off 
to a little spire that shot up from among some trees 
and hay-stacks two or three miles off. This was wel- 
come news ; and after a word or two with him on 
the subject, I sought and found my Eton boy, and 
asked him if he knew the way to that little church. 
"To be sure,'" he said, mentioning the name. "I 've 
been there many a time. Would you like to go ? 
We need n't go by the road ; I know paths through 
the fields." We set off without more words. He 
took me down through by-streets, and then through 
workshops and stables, and at last brought me out 
upon a broad, low meadow ; and then we followed 
by-paths and lanes. And here, from this out-of-the- 
way place, I got a view of the castle which surpassed 
in grandeur and in noble picturesqueness all views of 



A DAY AT WINDSOR. 157 

it that I had seen before, either with my own eyes or 
in prints and pictures. The sky line was more richly 
varied, tlie whole pile had much, more dignity, and the 
long, level foreground over wliicli I looked stretched 
out directly to the base of the mound out of which 
that majestic growth of stone seems to spring. 

As we walked, the lad, upon a little leading, told 
me about himself. He was a foundation scholar. 
His family had once been wealthy, but had decayed 
and become poor, — by means, I suspect, from what 
drop]3ed casually with his story, of a scampish father 
and grandfather. His friends had interest enough to 
get him a foundation scholarship at Eton, where he 
had been two years. But the poor fellow had not 
prospered ; for he confessed to me that he had been 
plucked twice. Moreover, he told me how hard a 
life he led among the sons of noblemen and rich gen- 
tlemen who filled the school ; liow they scorned him 
and scoffed him, and at best slighted him, and took 
no more notice of him " than if he had been a pnppy 
dog." I did not tell him, but I saw that the reason 
of this treatment was not only his being on the foun- 
dation, as he said, but his being neither clever nor 
strong. He was intelligent enough, and not quite 
a weakling; but he had been plucked- twice, and I 
saw that he would not have counted for much at foot- 
ball or at cricket. He lacked both nervous energy 
and strength of fibre ; and this in a foundation boy 
who was nothing at his books of course made him a 
nonentity at such a school as Eton, where, most of all 
places in England, the traditionary creed is held that 

" They should take who have the power, 
And they should keep who can." 

But he was a good-hearted fellow, and with some in- 



158 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

dependence, as I found ; for lie would take no tip from 
me, and had declined, as we came through the town 
from the castle, to have luncheon, suspecting, as I saw 
plainly, that I proposed it on his account. Poor, 
weak, sensitive soul! — sure not to succeed in life; 
able neither to take nor to keep, and ashamed to re- 
ceive, yet far more worthy of respect than many who 
get both gain and glory. 

After a pleasant walk we came out close by the 
little church, which stood almost literally among the 
hay-stacks, and which might have been hidden en- 
tirely from view, except its spire, by any one of many 
hay-stacks that I have seen in Pennsylvania ; for it 
was not much larger than a country scliool-house. 
But outside and inside it was a little jewel, of quaint- 
est design, if design could be asserted of wdiat bore 
the marks of different hands and different periods, — 
Saxon, Norman, and Early English. Part of it is 
said to have been built in the seventh century. It 
stood in its church-yard almost like a summer-house 
in a garden. It was composed of two parts, one 
much longer than the other. Its walls were of chalk 
and flint, and its roof was of flat, red tiles. It had a 
low, square tower, very heavily buttressed at the 
angles, from which rose, with a curved base, a small, 
sharp spire. The little porch at the side showed its 
rafters, as the whole church did ; those of the porch 
were like an A. Although so small, it had a nave 
and side aisles, and little clere-story windows, the 
sills of which almost rested upon round arches sup- 
ported by rude pillars. It had a pretty carved altar- 
piece ; and there- were the old high pews, — actually 
old, but comparatively very new; for at least one 
part of the church had been built centuries before 



A DAY AT WINDSOR. 159 

pews and Protestantism came in together. It was by- 
far the prettiest country church that I saw in Eng- 
land, and much the most interesting, notwithstanding 
the superior age claimed for St. Martin's at Canter- 
bury and the associations of the Hospital church at 
Harbledown. Yet upon after-inquiry among those 
of my friends who had been educated at Eton, I did 
not find one who had seen St. Andrew's of Clewer, al- 
though he had been within one hour's easy walk of 
it for three years. 

As I entered the church, there appeared at the 
porch, I know not how, as if she had come up out of 
a vault, an old woman, who smiled and courtesied 
and gave me good-day as I went in. She wore a cap, 
a folded kerchief, and an apron, all as neat as wax 
and as white as snow. I saw, of course, that the lit- 
tle place was her show ; but how she managed to be 
there as I came in, the Queen's head upon a shilling 
only knows ; for there cannot be a visitor a day to 
this little place. , I expected to hear her soon whin- 
ing beside me ; but no, she remained quietly at the 
porch, while I sauntered about the church until I got 
my fill of it ; nor did she offer to speak to me until I 
called her up and asked a question. She answered 
in so sweet a voice and with so pleasant a manner 
that she won my heart on the spot ; but it had been 
half won, as I encountered her, by her smile, her cap, 
her kerchief, and her apron. She showed me the lit- 
tle that there was to be shown, and told me the little 
that there was to be told, about the church, which 
for its age was very bare of legend and of monument. 
As I passed out I observed the font close by the 
porch, — a large, low, dark-colored bath of stone, half 
filled with water. Around the edge, which was a full 



160 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN, 

span deep, was aiTangecl a garland of roses, the most 
beautiful, I think, that I ever saw. They were white 
and red and yeUow, and their perfume filled the whole 
of the quaint old shrine; for the little church was 
hardly more. The old woman, seeing my admiration 
of them, told me that the rector's daughters had put 
them there " because to-day was St. Michael's and 
hall hangels." She dropped a little courtesy as she 
said it ; and if St. Michael and all the other angels 
were not pleased with her simple obeisance they 
must be harder to propitiate than I believe they are. 
We went out into the church-yai'd, which had as 
much beauty as such a place can have, — more than 
any other of its kind that I have seen. It was full of 
small dark evergreens (the Irish yew), which shot up, 
pointed like spires, from the emerald grass, the flow- 
ers, and the old head-stones. Although the place 
was so small and so rustic, there were others than 
"the rude forefathers of the hamlet" buried there. 
And as I went about among the, stones, the old 
woman, whom I kept near me by constant questions, 
that I might enjoy the pleasure of her speech, stooped 
to some planks which I had thought were the tempo- 
rary cover of a new and unfilled grave, and remov- 
ing one of them, showed me a large and handsome 
vault. It was of white marble, finely finished, and 
had slabs for two coffins. She told me that a Colonel 

was building it for himself and for his wife ; 

and she pointed out to me with evident pride its ele- 
gance and costliness. " See, sir," she said, " what a 
beautiful resting-place the Colonel is building for 
himself, and for his lady too, when it pleases God to 
call them. Could there be anything finer? See, sir, 
white marble and polished, that the porch of your 



A DAY AT WINDSOR. 161 

own liouse could n't be finer. [No, indeed, good 
soul ; there you are nearer right than you seem to 
think.] It must be such a consolation to them, sir." 
And she spoke quite as if she thought that the Col- 
onel and his " lady " ought to be very thankful, when 
it pleased God to call them, to be laid away in so 
grand and elegant a place. 

I left her smiling and courtesying, and walked back 
to "Windsor with my young Eton friend. I have 
since heard that she herself lies now in the church- 
yard ; and although there will be no marble around 
or above her humble coffin, I have no doubt that she 
sleeps as well as if she lay in the tomb that she re- 
garded as so inviting. Peace be with her ; for she 
had a gentle way, a sweet voice, and she did not 
speak unbidden. 

We crossed the Thames, going thus over a tiny 
bridge, from Windsor to Eton, and from Berkshire 
into Bucks ; and indeed it seemed to me as if, ex- 
cepting the castle, both places could be covered with 
a large blanket. In this is one of the charms of 
England, and I believe of other European countries, 
— that in small towns which have always been small 
you may- find buildings, like Windsor Castle and 
Eton College, which have always been large ; and 
the cultivated fields and the green meadows come 
close up to the walls or to the houses. Eton is a very 
small place, but is full of houses in which it must be 
a delight to live, so indicative are their outsides of 
comfort and refinement, and, not least, of reserve. 
And this expression of reserve, which pertains more 
or less to the houses in all small towns in England, 
is much helped in all by the winding, irregular 
streets. You cannot stand and look down a row of 
11 • 



162 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

houses a quarter of a mile long as if you were in- 
specting a file of soldiers. 

It was now long after noon, and I saw in a field an 
Eton game of foot-ball. It was played with spirit, 
but with less dash than I had been led to expect. 
At another time, however, there may have been more. 
Apart from their uniforms, the players could not 
have been distinguished from the same number of 
Yankee boys, of like condition in life, engaged in the 
same sport. I also met a large party of " old boys," 
as they came up, in their uniforms, from a cricket 
match. A lathier lot of young fellows I never saw. 
Not that they were either weak looking or unhealthy ; 
but they were not at all what the writings of British 
critics had led me to expect. Not one was robust ; 
only one had color ; and there was not a curling 
auburn head among them. I saw Eton boys by 
scores, and found them neither ruddy nor plump, 
but, like most other boys between twelve and twenty, 
rather pale and slender. 

The full-dress Eton costume is a ridiculous one. 
It is a short jacket or roundabout, with a very broad 
turn-over shirt collar, and a chimney-pot hat. The 
combination is grotesque ; and it is made more so 
by the solemnity of most of the young chaps when 
they have it on. 

Hunger drove me and my young companion into 
a restaurant, and I shall never forget the looks of a 
little Eton prig who entered as we were sitting, and 
took a place over against us. He kept on his pre- 
posterous hat, gave his order as if it were for his 
own capital execution, and ate his cakes and drank 
his chocolate as if that event were to take place at 
the conclusion of his repast. My poor fellow was not 



A DAY AT WINDSOR. 163 

one tenth pai-t so dignified, altliough he was, I am 
sure, a hundred times more agreeable. And when 
the time came for us to part, and I thanked him for 
his company, he stood up and made me a bow, and 
said, " I have had a very pleasant day, sir, and I hope 
you have." We went out and shook hands, and he 
turned toward the school, and I across the Thames 
toward Windsor. I should be glad to know that he 
was no longer snubbed, or worse, and that he was 
not plucked at his next examination. 

I was soon mthe train, and as we steamed away 
towards London, although it was only five o'clock in 
the afternoon, I saw the mist rising and lying in 
level bars across the trees some six or eight feet above 
the ground. It was so dense that it was plainly vis- 
ible at a distance of not more than one hundred 
yards, — plain enough for me to make a memoran- 
dum sketch of it. But this seems to breed no ma- 
laria. The tertian ague of our forefathers has de- 
parted from England. Did it come over here with 
bacon and beans and some other English blessings 
in the Mayflower ? 



CHAPTER VIII. 

EUEAL ENGLAND. 

While I was in England I saw nothing of its fac- 
tory life. I kept away from mills and mines and 
everything connected wdth them, — from all mills ex- 
cept grist-mills and saw-mills, finding very few of the 
latter. As to factories, I saw only " the black coun- 
try " around Wolverhampton, as I passed through 
it ; and the sight tempted me to no closer acquaint- 
ance. It looked like the valley and shadow of death, 
" a wilderness, a land of deserts and pits, a land of 
drought, and of the shadow of death, a land that no 
man passeth through, and where no man dwelt." 
And like Christian in the midst of this valley, I per- 
ceived the mouth of hell to be there, and it stood 
hard by the wayside, and ever and anon the flame 
and smoke would come out in such abundance with 
sparks and hideous noises, and still the flames would 
be reaching toward me ; also I heard doleful voices 
and rushings to and fro ; and this frightful sight was 
seen and these dreadful noises were heard by me for 
several miles together. Poor Christian went through 
it on foot; I had the advantage of him in doing it 
by rail, which would have helped him much ; but 
then there would have been no story, and the world 
would have lost one of the most vivid and stirring 
descriptions of the terrible and of terror that exists 



RURAL ENGLAND. 165 

in all literature.! Of the grievous blasphemies that 
the pilgrim, so hard bestead, had whispered into his 
ears, I heard nothing ; but I fear that I supplied 
that deficiency myself, in my heart at least, at the 
sight of such dark desolation wrought upon earth 
and sky, in a country that else might have been 
bright with beauty and glad with meadows and trees 
and fields of corn. 

It is impossible not to see that railways and mills 
and forges and towns are gradually, and not very 
slowly, destroying rural England. Railways, how- 
ever, are not so barely hideous there as they are 
in the United States. All that can be done is done 
to soften and mitigate their harsh unloveliness. They 
are carried over the roads or under them ; and this 
precaution against clanger does much to preserve 
beauty and diminish unsightliness. The glimpses of 
country roads and village streets, undisturbed by the 
passing train, that are caught from the windows of 
railway carriages are charming in themselves, and 
are witnesses of the care that is taken there that 
those who wish " rapid transit " shall not have it at 
the cost of the property, the business, the safety, the 
comfort, or even the pleasure of the neighborhoods 
through which it suits their convenience or their 
interest to hasten. The maxim " Sic utere tuo ut 
alienum non Igedas " (So use your own that you in- 
jure not that which is another's) seems to be a 
guiding one in the administration of British affairs 
— at home. Indeed, as compared with the United 
States, and with many other countries, England may 
be defined as the country in which every man has 

1 I need not tell the reader of Pilgrim's Progress that in the passage 
above I have borrowed Bunj'an's phraseology. 



166 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

rights whicli every other man is bound to respect. 
The rights are not always the same rights, but they 
may always be enforced even by the humblest aud 
poorest, and they are usually asserted and main- 
tained. In England private independence and pub- 
lic spirit are constant forces, and both have at their 
back the two great powers of the land, — the law 
and public opinion. There are great lords and great 
corporations in England ; but neither lord nor cor- 
poration can do a wrong to the poorest laborer, much 
less to a great body of people, with impunity, or 
lawfully take a penny without restoring it. The 
remedy lies at hand in the courts, which are incor- 
ruptible ; and it is always availed of. If any one 
should by chance suppose that I have in mind the 
elevated railways, existing and proposed in New 
York, he is quite right in his supposition. 

English railways are banked and sodded, and, if 
need be, walled, so that as you travel over them it 
does not seem as if the country had been rudely torn 
in twain and left at ragged ends for your passage. 
Even the stations are made sightly, and some of 
them are A'^ery pleasant to the eye. Many of them 
have little gardens on either side which are cultivated 
by the station-master's family ; and in not a few 
places I observed that these gardens, containing veg- 
etables and flowers and shrubs and even small trees, 
extended many rods on both sides of the station- 
house. Telegraph poles, such as those which traverse 
our roads and stand thickly in our very streets, look- 
ing like posts and lines on which Brobdingnag wash- 
erwomen might dry the petticoats of Glumdalclitch, 
are unknown in England. All unsightly things are 
kept out of sight as much as possible ; all unpleasant 



RURAL ENGLAND. 167 

sounds are suppressed as much as possible. In the 
cities manufacturers are not allowed to fill the air 
four times a day with the shrieks of steam-whistles, 
simply because it is convenient for them to mark 
their hours of work by turning a steam-cock. They 
are not permitted to save themselves trouble and a 
little money by annoying all others who are within 
hearing. Indeed, as I have mentioned before, even 
the railway whistle is rarely heard, and when heard 
it is a very mild and inoffensive creature compared 
with that which shrieks and howls over the plains 
and through the towns of our favored land. For 
generations England has been a manufacturing coun- 
try, and the manufacturing interest is now the most 
powerful influence in its affairs ; but there even 
manufacturers are obliged to respect the minor rights 
and little comforts of other people. It might be so 
with us if in ou_r so-called " land of liberty " we had 
personal independence and public spirit. But we 
have neither ; and the peculiarity of our liberty seems 
to be that it is the liberty of every man, and es- 
pecially the liberty of any combination of rich men, 
to get gain at the cost and by the annoyance of other 
people. 

But no care or contrivance can make railways and 
steam-mills and forges other than an offense to all 
the senses, or cause them to harmonize with human 
surroundings. If we will have what they give us, we 
must yet accept them as necessary evils. Therefore 
it is that, there being so many of them in so small 
a country, they are destroying rural England. By 
means of the first, and chiefly because of the others, 
the great towns encroach upon the country. This is 
true of all the great towns, but it is especially true 



168 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

of London. London not only grows monstrously it- 
self, but like some germs of corruption, it throws out 
prehensile feelers which draw other objects to it, to 
be changed into its own likeness, and made in fact 
part of itself. London town already in reality lies 
upon four counties, and spreads so rapidly, changing 
every place to London as it goes, that it seems as if 
in a not very remote future it must meet the off-shoots 
thrown out by other great towns, that it will absorb 
and assimilate them, and that England will become 
one great London, an island city of trade and manu- 
facture and art, the political and commercial metropo- 
lis of a peerless empire, yet dependent for its food 
and its rural recreation ujjon other countries, which 
its imperial people will use as their grain fields and 
as their grazing and hunting grounds. "Moab is my 
wash-pot ; over Edom will I cast out my shoe." 

Enough of rural England, however, still remains to 
make it the most beautiful country in the world to 
those who love to see nature humanized, and her spon- 
taneous beauties moulded by the hand of man and 
blended with his work. They who like rugged roads 
better than green meadows and cultivated slopes, or 
palms better than oaks and elms and beeches, or who 
like to live by rivers upon which fleets may sail, may 
seek their enjoyment of the beauties of nature in 
other climes. They to whom the blending of castle 
and cottage and spire with forest and field brings no 
enhancement of the beauty of unmitigated nature 
may find that beauty elsewhere, or have it " dry shod 
at home." But the lover of humanized nature may 
find it in England in a perfection which imagination 
can hardly surpass. If the climate of England 
tempts a man into the open air more than that of 



RUEAL ENGLAND. 169 

any other country, the beauty which rural England 
spreads before his eyes more than doubles the temp- 
tation. I expected much ; but although I am a man 
and did not come from Sheba, I was obliged to bor- 
row the words of the woman who did, and say that 
the half had not been told me. When Wordsworth 
wrote — i 

" One impulse from a vernal wood | 

May teach you more of man, j 

Of moral evil, and of good, | 
Than all the sages can," 

it was an English landscape that he had in his mind's 
eye. No true brother of the angle, no contemplative 
man whom any pursuit or taste tempts into commun- 
ion with nature, even in our raw, rude country, can 
fail to apprehend and feel, although he may not 
quite comprehend, what Wordsworth endeavored to 
express by his somewhat extravagant utterance ; but 
in England its truth comes home to him with tenfold 
strength.^ Nature there is informed with humanity ; 
there the landscape, without being artificial, has been 
redeemed from savagery. And this has been done 
not with purpose, but simply by man's taking natui'e 
to himself, to love her and to cherish. It is remark- 

1 The mood of Wordsworth's mind which is expressed in the stanza 
quoted above is that which is most characteristic. It found its finest and 
"subtlest as well as its sweetest utterance in The Daffodils. If I were asked 
to point out a passage in Wordsworth's writings which would in a few 
words illustrate the peculiar trait of his genius, although not its full 
strength and range, I should choose the last two lines but two of The Daf- 
fodils ; the beauty and significance of which, however, grow out of their 
immediate context : — 

" I gazed, and' gazed, but little thought 

What wealth the show to me had brought : 

For oft, when on my couch I lie, 

In vacant or in pensive mood 

They flash tipon that inward eye 

Wliich is the bliss of solitude ; 

And then my heart with pleasure fills, 

And dances with the daffodils." 



170 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

able that a people so inferior in the arts of design 
should have been able so to treat nature that art maj 
look to the result as a model, almost as a realized 
ideal. The beauty of English scenery is a set-oft 
against many acres of painted canvas of which other 
peoples boast. Eye-full and soul-full with pleasure, 
I often thought it would be good if England could be 
preserved from further encroachment of towns and 
railways, and be kept beautiful for all the English 
peoples to go home to, and visit, and feel that they 
had the right of children in their father's house, al- 
though they had left it perforce for another. 

In my country walks I was interested not only in 
the beauty of rural England, which in greater or less 
degree never failed to delight my eyes, but in the 
people ; and indeed it was in my endeavors to observe 
them, and in my way to see places and buildings of 
note, that I found the beauty which I did not seek. 
I wished to know something by personal contact of 
the English country folk, the farmers and the peas- 
ants ; and I was able to do so. I found them accessi- 
ble, good-natured, and truly hospitable. 

A fme afternoon tempted me to a long stroll in the 
country around Canterbury, and as the twilight came 
on I saw a little cottage in the midst of a great 
sprout-field. The approach to it from the road was 
by a narrow path. In this I found a poor man, a 
farm-laborer, standing by a plow which he was un- 
tackling, and by him stood his little child, ragged and 
barefooted. The man's face was sad, and his child 
was sad, too, and silent. He answered my greeting 
civilly, but so heavily and with such manifest reserve 
that I did not stop and speak with him, as was my 
custom. The incident was nothing, even to me, ex- 



RURAL ENGLAInTD. 171 

cept that it seemed to show how little change had 
been made in men of his condition by the lapse of 
centuries. For it brought up at once to me that pas- 
sage in '"Piers Plowman's Creed," which even in my 
boyhood, and before I had pondered the sorrowful 
problem of life, had moved me to tears, in which the 
writer tells of his meeting with the poor man who 
hung upon the plow, whose hood was full of holes so 
that his hair came out, and whose toes looked out of 
his clouted shoes as he wallowed in the fen almost to 
his ankle ; whose wife was with him using the goad, 
barefooted on the bare ice that the blood followed ; 
and their children were there : — 

" And al they songen o song 
That sorwe was to heren ; 
They crieden alle o cry, 
A careful note." 

And this wretched man, when he sees Piers Plowman 
weeping, stills his children, lets the plow stand, asks 
him why he grieves, and says that if he lacks liveli- 
hood he shall share with him such good as God hath 
sent : — " Go we, leeve brother." 

Passing the poor man and his child, I went to the 
cottage door, which proved not to be his. It was 
half open, and at the sound of my step a woman ap- 
peared. She was homely of feature, but pleasant of 
look, healthy seeming, and comfortably clad. She 
bade me " Good-even," which I returned, and asked 
if she could give me a glass of water, saying that I 
had had a long walk, and that there was no ale-house 
near. This I did because I had been told that the 
peasants were very shy of the curious, and resented 
sullenly the mere intrusion of their superiors. She 
answered, cheerily, " 'Deed I can, sir, and I will. 



172 EN(3iLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

But will ye walk in, sir, an' sit down. We 're just 
havin' supper." This was just wliat I wanted, and 
more than I had hoped for, and I said. Yes, if she 
would n't let me disturb them. " 'Deed an' ye won't, 
sir ; an' if ye 'd sit with us an' take a cup o' tea, ye 'd 
be kindly welcome." Then, turning to her husband, 
who sat munching his supper in stolid but not ill- 
natured silence, — the usual mood of the inferior 
man animal here when not under excitement, — she 
said, " Mate, the gentleman wants a glass of water ; 
step out and draw him some fresh." He obeyed in 
silence ; and while he was out she said, " We 've 
good water here, sir ; sweet an' soft, an' it comes 
cool from the well." The water when it came was 
worthy of her praise, and was one of but two 
draughts of sweet, soft water that I had in England. 
For there all over the country (as I found it) the 
water is hard ; it does not adapt itself to your thirsty 
throat ; and when you wash, the soap does not mix 
with it, but forms a patchy scum with eyes, that float 
about and look at you. 

I accepted the invitation to sit with them at table, 
and was pleased, and, after what I had heard and 
read of the hard lot of the famished English farm- 
laborer, surprised at the comfort of their meal. The 
bread was good, better than that which is sold by 
most bakers in New York ; and they had butter 
(good also), and cheese, and tea which although not 
very good was still tea, and quite drinkable when 
concocted with milk and white sugar, both which 
they had of good quality. They had also a dish of 
cabbage and potatoes, of which 1 did not eat. As I 
took my cup of tea and ate my slice of bread and 
butter, I talked with them, and asked questions 



RURAL ENGLAND. 173 

about their life. I say with them, but it was the 
woman who did all the talking, the man sitting si- 
lent, only uttering a few words or a simple "aye" 
when she appealed to him : "Mate, how is that? " 
or, "Mate, isn't that so?" I liked her use of 
" mate " instead of that unlovely word "husbfyid." 

The sum of my observation and information at 
this visit was as follows. The cottage was of three 
rooms, entered, after the first, in which we sat, one 
from the other. These rooms were about- ten feet 
square, and the walls, which were of rough stone 
plastered, were about seven feet high. The rooms 
were ceiled, and the roof was thatched. For this 
cottage they paid half a crown (sixty-three cents) a 
week. The man earned twenty shillings a week, and 
the woman got washing and odd jobs to do. They 
were cheerful, and seemed to think themselves very 
comfortable. They complained of the odd sixpence 
in the rent (half a crown is two and sixpence), and 
thought that they ought to have the cottage for two 
shillings. If they could but do this and have a patch 
of ground for a. vegetable garden, the woman said 
they " would be made ; " but of the latter there was 
no hope. To my surprise, I found wherever I went 
among the peasants this absolute lack of a square 
foot of ground on which to grow a radish. What is 
the cause of the universal, or at least the general, 
unwillingness to let these poor people have the use 
of a few yards of idle land beside their cottages I 
did not learn, and cannot conjecture. It cannot be 
the value of the land, for at least as much as they 
could use is thrown out of cultivation by the very 
presence of the cottage. I afterwards found that 
this cottage and the fare and fortune of its inmates 



174 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

were fairly representative of tlie housing and living 
of the peasants in such parts of England as I visited ; 
but I was not in the western counties, where, I be- 
lieve, the peasants fare most hardly. This couple had. 
no children, as, in answer to me, the woman said, with 
a droop in her voice that showed that she had ceased 
to hope for one. Poor creature ! if her natural long- 
ing had been satisfied, perhaps there would have been 
less comfort in her cottage and less cheerfulness in 
her face. 

The landlord of the cottager is not, or is rarely, 
the squire or the lord of the manor. His landlord is 
the farmer ; and my observation and inquiry led me 
to the opinion that the farmers as a class are dis- 
posed to be hard upon the farm-laborers. It is they 
who refuse them little garden allotments ; it is they 
who exact for miserable hovels rents which are en- 
tirely out of proportion to their value, and to the rent 
of the ground on which they stand. It is the Eng- 
lish farmer who is most strongly opposed to household 
suffrage in the rural districts. I do not mean to say 
that upon the latter point he is in error, or to ex- 
press any opinion in regard to the subject ; I merely 
remark upon it as a fact not unsignificant. In truth, 
^he English farmer is an aristocrat. He is willing to 
take his place in a system of caste, and to look up, 
if he may also look down. He will touch his hat to 
the squire, and think it quite right that people should 
be respectful to their superiors ; and he is confirmed 
in this opinion, or rather this feeling, when Hodge 
touches his hat to him. To give Hodge a vote would 
be to take away one of the marks of his inferior 
condition, and so to level him up, in every respect 
except money, to the position of his employer. With 



RURAL ENGLAND. 175 

my limited opportunities for observation, it would 
not become me to pronovince upon the social and po- 
litical feelings of whole classes in England ; but I 
believe the farmers to be the most conservative body | 
in the kingdom, the least disposed to change, and to 
be the main-stay of the tory party. 

The English farmer must be a man of some money 
capital. It is not uncommon for him to have from one 
thousand to five thousand pounds (that is from five 
thousand to twenty-five thousand dollars), and some 
farmers are worth much more than that. As none of 
his money is invested in the land which he tills, he 
has it all for current expense, as an improvement 
fund, and as a reserve. This gives him the position 
and the importance of a capitalist, and brings him a 
certain consideration even from the ecreat land-hold- 
ers ; but it does not make him independent, or, I 
should say, even aspiring, with extremely rare excep- 
tions. If crops are good, if his wife and his sons and 
daughters are healthy and do his will, and if the 
squire is " haffable " when they meet, he is content ; 
and who shall say that he does not wisely ? So long 
as his rent is paid with fair punctuality and his fam- 
ily live decent lives, he may be sure of not being dis- 
turbed ; and indeed he is not uncommonly living in 
the same house in which his father and his grand- 
father lived before him, and his plows are following 
theirs along the old furrows. And if he cannot pay 
his rent, his landlord, the son or the grandson of 
theirs, would be an exceptional English squire if he 
were not ready to do anything in reason to make it 
easy for him in the present, and to help him in the 
future. But however prosperous, he does not think 
of such a thing as setting up for a gentleman ; nor 



176 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

does he seek to acquire the tastes or the habits of one, 
although he may be better able to afford them than 
many of those who have them by birth and breed- 
ing. The truth is, they would not suit him ; to be 
obliged to live like a gentleman would be to him a 
daily affliction. He sometimes hunts a little ; but 
hunting is a rough, ont-o'-doors amusement, which 
may be enjoyed to the full by the dullest and coars- 
est of human creatures, as well as by their superiors 
in intellect and refinement. But here the English 
farmer generally stops in his direct contact with the 
gentry and his imitation of them. He reads little, 
and thinks less. He has his place in the social scale, 
and with that he is content. His wife and daughters 
are often more ambitious. 

English cottages and farm-houses are generally 
picturesque objects in a landscape, their forms and 
colors being almost always pleasing in themselves 
and harmonious with their surroundings. And within 
doors, the cottages, although they may be very 
rude and comfortless, have a character which is not 
to be found in houses of a corresponding or of a much 
higher class in the United States. These, square, 
sharp-edged, flat-roofed, built yesterday, directly on 
the road-side, of clapboards and shingles, and painted 
white or lead color, are very unsightly objects in 
themselves, and compared with English cottages of 
stone or brick, or beams and plaster, with their 
t 'itched roofs tiled or thatched, their softened out- 
lines and rich color, are much inferior in beauty. 
But in real comfort and in healthiness I am inclined 
to think that our flimsy wooden houses are superior. 
For they are dry and warm. Their shingle roofs 
keep out the rain, which comes through thatch, or 



RURAL ENGLAND. 177 

soaks and rots it, and their clapboard sides do not 
become reservoirs of cold dampness. Rheumatism is 
not so common among those who live in them as it 
is among the English rustic folk. In an English 
village, or along an English country road, you see 
more old men leaning upon sticks, or sunning them- 
selves as they sit crooked over by their doors, than 
you do in the farming districts of New England and 
the Middle States. 

Picturesque, too, as the English farm-house is at a 
distance, and picturesque as it often is within, — 
made so by old brown beams and red brick and mel- 
low-tinted stone left in sight, and old tables and 
settles' browned by the smoke and the use of gen- 
erations, — when seen close b}^, it generally bears 
without, as it does within, the mark of the inferior 
condition and habits of its occupants. Sight and 
smell are offended by objects that are in unnecessary 
nearness ; and there are no indications that the in 
habitants are anything more than tillers of the 
ground, and that when woi-k is done they put it and 
its belongings out of sight and out of mind, and 
change their occupation with their clothes. The 
family live generally in the kitchen, although there 
is a parlor, or keeping room, which is used on high 
days and holidays, and sometimes on other days in 
the evening. 

I have in mind one of the farm-houses in which I 
was, which might be taken as a type of its class. 
The occupant paid <£150 a year for one hundred and 
eighty acres with a comfortable stone house. The 
kitchen, where I found the family, was paved with 
large red brick, which is the common flooring of 
farm-house kitchens. Damp as it must be, it is pre- 

12 



178 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

ferred. A landlord told me that he had offered to 
put down plank floors, but that the offer had been 
declined. It might be reasonably supposed that the 
women would gladly change the bi-icks for wood ; 
but they have been accustomed to the bricks, and 
they cling to them. Certainly the advantage in ap- 
pearance is largely on the side of the old flooring. I 
remember another farm-house kitchen in which I 
drank buttermilk, which with its unceiled beams, its 
old oaken window casings and settles, its gigantic 
chimney-piece of the same, its soft, sombi"e plaster, 
its red brick floor, and rows of red flower-pots stand- 
ing behind the lattice in the deep window, presented 
one of the richest and most charming combinations 
of color that I ever saw. And it was a notably home- 
like-looking place, Avith individual traits and a physi- 
ognomy of its own, to which one might become at- 
tached ; being in this respect far superior to the pos- 
sibly more comfortable, but utterly blank and char- 
acterless rooms corresponding to it in our country. 

In the other farm-house I was hospitably offered 
cider, for which the neighborhood had reputation, 
and was invited into the keeping room to drink it. 
Compared with Newark cider, or any of our cider 
of like gi'ade, it was a dull, flavorless fluid ; but 
the drinking it gave me an opportunity to chat and 
look about me. In the former way, however, I ef- 
fected little. It was difficult to extract anything 
more than monosyllables from my entertainer. In- 
deed, I found the farmers the most taciturn class in 
England ; and I may say that they were the only 
people that I met there who as a wdiole were silent 
and reserved. The peasantry I found very ready to 
talk, as I did also the higher classes ; but the farmer 



KURAL ENGLAND. 179 

sat mumchance. The cause of this of course I do 
not know; but it occurred to me that it might be his 
position. He knows little more than the peasant, 
and can talk but little better ; and yet he has a con- 
sciousness of superiority which makes him, in the 
presence of his betters, ashamed of his great mental 
inequality with them, and therefore he is silent. 
Certainly, the furnishing of this parlor showed the 
barest possible condition of mind in those for whom 
it was prepared. There was a heavy, clumsy old 
mahogany sideboard, evidently looked upon with 
great respect, upon which stood some old decanters 
and glasses, deeply cut and very ugly ; upon the 
walls were three or four colored prmts of the cheap- 
est kind, ugly also ; on the table was a large Bible 
and an almanac, or some book of the sort; and these, 
with the chairs, one of which was a rocker, completed 
the furnishing of the room, compared with which the 
kitchen was cheerful and attractive. The holder of 
such a farm as this in New England or the Middle 
States would have taken me into another sort of 
room, would have received me more on a footing 
of equality, and would have had more to say in re- 
ply to my inquiries. Whether he would have been 
so good a farmer I very much doubt ; whether he 
would have been a more respectable man, or even a 
happier, I shall not pretend to decide. 

An English village is not at all like one in New 
England ; at least I saw none such, and I walked 
through scores of them, north, south, and east. In- 
stead of the long, wdde street, with its great elms 
and maples, on which are the churches and meeting- 
houses, the houses of the principal farmers, of the 
clergyman, the lawyer, and the physician, as well as 



180 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

of the minor people, an English village shows a knot 
of little brick, or stone, or antique beam and plaster 
houses, very close together, and mostly without grass 
ot trees of any kind. There is an ale-house, which 
has for its sign and name the head or body of some 
wild beast of impossible color, or the arms of the 
nearest nobleman or gentleman, a shop or two, and 
in the middle the town pump. These villages gen- 
erally belong bodily to the bearer of the arms afore- 
said, and in some cases they are not more than half a 
mile apart. It impressed me strangely when a gentle- 
man who was driving me through one of these said, 
as we passed a group of houses, from one of which a 

coat of arms hung out, " This is Lord 's village." 

" Then," I replied, " that one we drove through last 
[it was about fifteen minutes before] was yours." 
" Yes," he said, with a little smile at my question. 
He had said nothing of it as we passed through. 

One of the remarkable conditions of rural Eng- 
land is this nearness to each other of places regarded 
as distinct. I asked a little fellow in Essex if he 
was born in the village in which we were. " Oa 
noa! " he answered with surprise, almost with resent- 
ment. " I were born in " (I forget the name). 

" And where is ? " " Yon," he said, pointing 

to a nest of half a dozen little houses, about as far 
off as the width of Boston Common. Every place, 
every clump of wood, every little knoll, every hol- 
low, has a name by which it is known to the whole 
neighborhood. Even the sliaws, which are hollows 
filled with a growth of shrubs and dwarf trees, are' 
named, and have been named for centuries. 

The smallest isolated village through which I 
walked was Speke, in Lancashire. Its utter insig- 



EURAL ENGLAND. 181 

nificance may be gathered from the fact that it con- 
tained no shop, and not even an ale-house. The ab- 
sence of this customary place of refreshment (where 
you may be pretty sure of good beer and good bread 
and cheese, if not of a good chop) caused me, after I 
had walked out a few miles into the country around, 
to look about me for luncheon. Two pretty little 
cottages at the end of a short lane attracted my at- 
tention, and I resolved to try them. As I walked up 
the lane I passed three boys playing, whose names, 
oddly enough, were Tom, Dick, and Harry. After 
a few words, I proposed that each of them should 
accept a penny. The proposition was received in 
silence, but with a delight manifested by flushed 
cheeks and brightened eyes, and, when the pennies 
had been bestowed, by a mutual exhibition of them, 
accompanied by that twist of the head which means 
so much in a boy, and which is of no race or people ; 
or if it be peculiar to Anglo-Saxons, then all boys of 
English blood may pity the French and German and 
other boys who have it not. The like sum, however, 
would have elicited no such signs of pleasure from 
" American " boys. But in England a penny is a 
possession to a child, of whatever rank. One day a 
little lady, some six or seven years old, who was sit- 
ting on my knee, while her younger sister sat with 
mamma, hard by, said to me with an amusing air of 
importance, " I had a penny yesterday," — the room 
in which she made this announcement was hung with 
antique tapestry that was given to one of her ances- 
tors by a king, — " and I had it," she went on, " for 
reading." Whereupon her little ladyship opposite 
spoke up, saying, "And I had a penny, too; and 
I had it for not reading," at which charming non 



182 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

sequitur there was a merry peal of laughter from 
mamma and me that greatly disconcerted the little 
damsel. I thought at the time how much better this 
restriction as to money was than that lavish use of it 
to which "American " children are accustomed. A 
young lad}^ whom I knew well was at a famous school 
on the continent of Europe, wliere she had not a few 
titled school-mates. Certain exercises being required 
which were mere manual drudgery, and a certain 
orderly arrangement of tlie toilette table, et cetera^ 
my fair friend, being somewhat lazily disposed, was 
able by her excess of pocket money over that of her 
noble companions to have her exercise copied by a 
princess, and her toilette table kept in order by a 
countess. As to which I think that, looking for- 
ward, the discipline of the noble young ladies was 
of better omen than that of the New-York mer- 
chant's daughter. 

But I am long on my way to the cottages, where 
indeed I found little of peculiar interest, not even the 
thing of most interest to me just then, — luncheon. 
The one which I entered seemed to have but two 
rooms, but it may have had three. The room at the 
door of which I found myself was, as usual, the 
kitchen and living room. The walls were plastered ; 
the beams and the thatch showed ; the floor was 
paved with flat stones, which were much broken in 
places, so as to show the ground beneath. This floor 
must have " heaved," to use the word by which the 
peasants express the striking up of the wet ground 
and the dampness in these floors. Nearly opposite 
the door was a large dresser, on which was a not 
copious array of crockery. A fire-place, as large as 
that in the kitchen of an old-fashioned New England 
farm-house, stood out into the room. 



EURAL ENGLAND. 183 

Notwithstanding the condition which I have de- 
scribed, the aspect of the place was cheerful, much 
more cheerful than that of many " best parlors " in 
which I have been. Perhaps tliis cheerfulness was 
somewhat owing to the fact that it was a bright, 
genial day, and that a mellow light and a soft air en- 
tered the door with me : perhaps, also, to the fact 
that one of three women whom I found seated before 
the chimney (from habit, for there was no fire) was 
a handsome mother, who was suckling her child, 
which sweet sight, with charming freedom from 
shame, she did not hesitate to allow me to enjoy. 
But no small part of the attraction of the room was 
a flowering vine which climbed up the cottage wall 
and strayed in through the open lattice. And there, 
too, in this humble habitation, stood a row of pots 
with flowers, common flowers, the grandest of them 
a geranium ; but ail were well cared for and nearly 
all Ave re blooming. 

Nothing struck me more forcibly as peculiar to the 
lower classes in England, or won me more in their 
favor, than their love of flowers. It is universal. 
Go where I would, in the abode of the poorest farm- 
laborer, tlirough the back streets of little country 
towns, where the houses were hovels grimier and 
gloomier than any cottage I entered, I saw flowers. 
Sometimes it was a single flower that could have cost 
nothing, set in an old broken tea-pot or other shard 
of earthenware ; but it was there, and it was put in 
the window, and plainly was prized and tended. The 
beautiful feeling of which this is a manifestation 
seems to be almost lost to us. For it has absolutely 
nothing in common with that fashion of cutting flow- 
ers off by the head and making them up into huge. 



184 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

artificial masses for decorative purposes at feasts and 
at funerals, which has prevailed among us for many 
years. That fashion, on the contrary, is actually at 
war with this feeling ; for it destroys the very beauty 
wdiich the flower-lover so much prizes ; it does away 
with the character of the flov^^er, which is only to be 
seen as it stands upon its stem and amid its leaves ; 
and it de^srives the flower nurse of her tender pleas- 
ui-e. This flower-loving and flower-tending, although 
of course it has no moral significance, no more than 
Robespierre's love of cats, seems to me a very charm- 
incj trait in the character of English women. 

After giving the woman with the child good-day, I 
asked her (for she plainly was at home) if she could 
give me some bread and milk, mentioning as my ex- 
cuse that even if I walked back to the village it had 
no public-house. She replied pleasantly, " No of- 
fense, sir, but I 'm sorry I can't give you any milk ; 
we 've no cow." Whereupon there was a consulta- 
tion between her and the two old crones, who sat 
with their chins between their hands and their elbows 
on their knees. One cottage and another in the 
neighborhood was suggested, but in vain ; not one 
had a cow. And this, by the way, I found very gen- 
eral. If the cottager has a pig he does Avell ; the 
possession of a cow is a mark of somewhat high grade 
in agricultural society. At last the name of such an 
aristocrat was remembered, and I was told how to 
reach him or her. I had merely to go back through 
the lane, cross the road, and take the next by-road, 
and follow it about a mile. 

On my way thither I passed a man doing work 
that we hear of sometimes, but never see, — break- 
ing stones on the highwa3^ He was an old man, and 



RURAL ENGLAND. 185 

he sat flat upon the road, with a heap of small square 
stones between his legs, at which he pegged away 
with a hammer having a small head and a long han 
die. I stopped and talked with him. He had on a 
pair of wire goggles to protect his eyes from the 
splinters of the stone. They stood well out from his 
face, and as he lifted his head to answer my greeting 
he had the look of a large, benevolent lobster set 
upon end in the road-way. He was not stolid, but 
talked intelligently, speaking very good English, and 
seemed cheerful and contented. His wage was eight- 
een shillings a week ; and as he had now no one de- 
pendent upon him he was quite at his ease. That 
at his age, he being certainly sixty-five years old, he 
should sit all day upon a damp road-way and smite 
small stones into smaller pieces he seemed to take as 
the ordinary and inevitable course of things. I 
learned from him that the wages paid in that neigh- 
borhood were, for plowing twenty shillings a week, 
for harvesting twenty shillings, for digging and piece 
work eighteen shillings. On my telling him that he 
would get nineteen shillings that week, and proving 
it to him, he was very grateful. I turned away and 
resumed my walk and he his hammering. 

I soon found the house to which I had been sent, 
and the mistress was at home ; and a very comfort- 
able body she was to have- about a house, ample, 
healthy, very cheerful, and, without being at all 
pretty, not uncomely. I made a hungry man's re- 
quest. Her reply was prompt and cheery. Indeed 
I could have some bread and milk, and cheese too, if 
I would walk in and sit. This I did at once, taking 
a seat by a small table by the kitchen fire (for it was 
the kitchen) ; and while she went off on her Eve's 



186 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

business, just as if I had been an archangel, I looked 
about me. All that I saw was very homely ; but 
comfort and plenty were manifest on every side, 
with neatness and order. I got a glimpse of the liv- 
ing room through a half-open door, and it was much 
more attractive than what I saw in the south of Eng- 
land. Indeed, the farm-houses and even the cottages 
in Lancashire seemed to me better in every respect 
than those in the southei-n and eastern shires. 

My hostess soon returned, and set a pitcher of milk 
(she would have called it a jug, and so would her 
betters, but it was a pitcher), a loaf of bread, and a 
big wedge of cheese before me, and bade me wel- 
come. I fell to, and she turned to an ironing table 
and began to sprinkle clothes that lay in a large 
buck-basket. As I ate and she worked we chatted ; 
and I learned that her husband was a small farmer, 
paying for twenty acres of land, this nice stone house, 
with a stable and barn, twenty pounds a year, if I 
remember aright. Her goodman was kind to her (I 
saw plainly that she loved him) ; they were fore- 
handed folk ; and she was " as happy as the Queen, 
God bless her majesty," — with a little courtesy. I 
slackened the working of my jaws, and stopped, 
when she pressed me to my food, begging me to eat 
the whole, for there was plenty more. But although 
I had not eaten for six hours, and had walked many 
miles, I was quite inadequate to what she proposed, 
which gave me an astonishing notion of her good- 
man's performances at table. Hearty thanks and a 
shilling at parting were pleasantly received as full 
payment, and I went on my now aimless way. 

I walked straight on into the country, by the rich- 
ness and the fine farming of which I was strongly 



EUEAL ENGLAND. 187 

impressed. In the newly plowed fields the ground 
turned up a dark, rich loam, and the furrows across 
a twelve-acre field were drawn as straight as if they 
had been ruled. I had observed this highlj?^ finished 
plowing elsewhere in England. In some fields, for a 
reason that I know not, there was an alternation of 
four or five farrows with an unplowed green space 
of about the same width all across the field. The 
lines were drawn so accurately, and the sides of the 
unplowed spaces were so exactly parallel, that the 
effect was as if a gigantic piece of green music-paper 
had been spread upon the earth. The farm-houses 
and their out-buildings were substantial, comfortable, 
and in good repair, and I passed some well-trimmed 
hedges that were quite ten feet high. As I walked 
I was conscious of a difference between this country 
and that in the middle and southern shires from 
whicli I had just come. At first I did not see to 
what the different impression was owing ; but all at 
once it came upon me, — the land was level and there 
were no trees. As far as I could see, all around me, 
the land lay flat, or in very gentle undulation, and 
there was scarcely a tree in sight. .The only green 
was that of the fields and the hedges ; and the latter 
were confined to the grounds just around the houses. 
This absence of trees and scarcity of hedges deprived 
the landscape of what we regard as its peculiarly 
English, traits. But the notion that the hedge is the 
universal fence in England is erroneous. Even in 
the south, where hedges are most common, post and 
rail fences are even more common ; for the hedge is 
used chiefly on the road-line, and to mark the more 
important divisions of property. Elsewhere, post 
and rail fences and palings are frequently found. 



188 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

The hedges that line the roads are generally not 
more than three feet and a half high, and are not 
thick, but grow so thin and hungrily tliat the light 
shines through them. In yarious j^arts of Essex I 
found miles of ugly board-fence, and palings along 
the sides of the roads, and houses built of clapboards. 
There were not so many trees nor such fine ones as 
I saw elsewhere ; the sides of the roads were ragged, 
the hedges low and thin. Indeed, it Avould be diffi- 
cult to find a difference between some parts of rural 
Essex and the neglected parts of the flat country in 
New England, New York, or New Jersey. 

Near houses, especially in suburban places, brick 
walls are common ; and I observed in these a fact 
\\ hich seemed significant. In most cases I saw that 
the walls in such places had been raised by an addi- 
tion of some two or three feet. The upper courses of 
bricks were plainly discernible to be of a make dif- 
ferent from that of the original wall, and the joint 
and the newer mortar could easily be detected. This 
seemed to show unmistakably an increase in the feel- 
ing of reserve, and perhaps in the necessity for it. 
The walls that. would sufficiently exclude the public 
a hundred years and more ago were found insufficient, 
and some fifty years ago (for even the top courses 
were old and well set and mossy) the barriers were 
made higher,: — high enough to be screens against all 
passing eyes. 

Another change seemed to me to be witnessed by 
the fields all over the country. I observed not un- 
commonly trees standing in lines in fields or mead- 
ows, but chiefly in the latter. Seen from any point 
but one, their linear arrangement was hardly appar- 
ent, but with a little trouble they might be sighted 



EURAL ENGLAND. 189 

in line. Now sucli an arrangement of trees in an 
open field is almost certain evidence that the line in 
which they stand was once that of a fence of some 
kind ; and these trees therefore bore witness to the 
increase of the size of fields in England in late years, 
— a natnral accompaniment of an increase in the 
size of farms and holdings generally. The Lanca- 
shire fields past which I now was walking were free 
from these trees and from hedges. I cannot but be- 
lieve that they had been removed for purposes of 
agricultural thrift : for trees in fields and hedges be- 
tween them are greedy devourers of the nourishment 
that is neMed for the crops. I found a plowman 
sitting on a rail fence, but he could tell me nothing 
about this, although he seemed to be a sensible fel- 
low. " The land was as he had alius knowed it." 
He gave me the same information as to wages that I 
received from my old lobster friend, and like him 
praised the soil without stint. I found all the Lan- 
cashire country folk proud of their land, and with 
good reason. 

My road soon became very lonely. I had not met 
one human creature since I ate my luncheon; but 
now not even a human habitation was in sight. The 
road narrowed and wound about, following the course 
of a sluggish little stream, which, with alders and 
ragged bushes stooping over it was always at my 
right hand, and began to be offensive to me. What 
business had it there, stealing along in noiseless 
shadow? It was neither beautiful nor useful, butia 
mere ditch of running water. I began to hate it. 
The sun was going down, darkened by heavy dun 
clouds, casting a gloom upon the landscape. As I 
walked on I thought. Why should not some of these 
people thai I have seen this afternoon, that plow- 



190 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

man on the fence, for instance, murder me and throw 
me mto that hateful stream ? The few sovereigns 
that I have with me and my watch would be ample 
temptation ; and if any one or two of them should do 
it they would quite surely escape detection. Foi^ 1 
should not soon be missed. The friend whom I left 
in Liverpool, even if I did not return within a day 
or two, would merely suppose that I was off on some 
traveler's expedition, and would await letters for a 
week or perhaps a fortnight, may be, before making 
any inquiry. And if inquiry were made, I might 
possibly be traced to the farm-house where I took my 
luncheon, but no farther ; for in all this- -distance of 
some miles I had not seen man, woman, or child. 
Such things are often done in England, and this is 
just the time and place and occasion. 

The ideas of time and place suddenly suggested to 
me that to be back in Liverpool that evening I must 
be at the railway station at a certain hour, and I was 
miles away from it. I looked at my watch, and 
found that at my best pace I had barely time to 
make the distance. I turned, and set off at a swing 
ing gait that I knew I could keep up for half a day. 
As I walked, the gloom vanished from my soul ; my 
quickened pace and my settled purpose almost 
changed the face of nature to me, and made even 
the sluggish stream not quite hateful. As I passed 
the great field where I had left my murderous plow- 
man on the fence, I saw him whistling behind his 
plow, half a furrow's length off. At the farm-house, 
my comely hostess looked out at the door and gave 
me a smiling, cheery " Good-even, sir." Just as I 
reached the station I heard the little chirp of the 
steam-whistle on the coming train, and by nine 
o'clock I was in Liverpool. 



CHAPTER IX. 

ENGLISH MEN". 

One of the earliest records of modern history in 
regai-d to the race which peopled the Old England 
and the New refers to its beauty. Most of us have 
heard the story : how three young captives, brought 
from an almost unknown island on the verge of civ- 
ilization, and indeed at the western limit of the then 
known world, were exposed for sale in Rome ; and 
how Gregory the Great, not yet Pope, seeing them, 
was struck by their beauty, and asked what they 
were, and being told, Angli (English), replied, 
'-'• Non Angli, sed angeW' (not Angles, but angels), 
— which was a tolerable pun for a future Pope and 
saint. This was twelve hundred years ago ; and 
since that time the English race has enjoyed the rep- 
utation (subject to some carping criticism, due to the 
self-love of other peoples) of being the handsomest 
in the world. It is well deserved ; indeed, if it were 
not, it "would long ago have been jealously extin- 
guished. 

Not improbably, however, the impression made 
upon Gregory was greatly due to the fair complexion, 
blue eyes, and golden brown hair of the English cap- 
tives, which, indeed, are mentioned in the story. For 
Southern Europe is peopled with dark-skinned, dark- 
haired races ; and the superior beauty of the blonde 
type was recognized by the painters, who always, 



192 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

from the earliest days, represented angels as of that 
type. The Devil was painted black so much as a 
matter of course that his pictured appearance gave 
rise to a well-known proverb ; ordinary mortals were 
represented as more or less dark ; celestial people 
were white and golden-haired; whence the epithet 
" divinely fair." ^ When therefore the good Gregory 
saw the fair, blue-eyed English youths, his compari- 
son was at once suggested, and his pun was almost 
made to his hand. And I am inclined to believe that 
it is of much later origin, although he ought to have 
made it ; just as Sydney Smith ought to have said to 
Landseer, when he asked the Reverend wit to sit for 
his portrait, " Is thy servant a dog that he should 
do this thing ? " and as the innkeeper ought to have 
said to Mr. Seward that not he was Governor of New 
York, but " Thurlow Weed, by thunder ! " but did 
not. In each of these cases, however, and in all such, 
a significant fact is at the bottom of the story, which 
otherwise would have no reason for its being. 

It is hardly true, however, that other races do not 
produce individuals approaching as nearly to an ideal 
standard of beauty as any that are seen among the 
English. These are found, as we all know, among 
the various Latin races, the Celts and the Sclaves, 
and even, as Mr. Julian Hawthorne himself would 
hardly venture to deny, among the Teutons, the very 
Saxons themselves. Who has not seen French wom- 
en and French men, Italians, Spaniards, Russians, 
Poles, Irish, and even Germans of both sftxes, dis- 

1 So Shakespeare in his 127th Sonnet : — 

" In the old time black was not counted fair, 
Or if it were, it bore not beauty "s name ; 
But now is black beauty's successive heir, 
And beauty slander'd with a bastard's shame '' 



ENGLISH MEN. 193 

tingiiisbecl by striking and captivating personal 
beauty both of face and figure ? But the average 
beauty of the Englisli race appears to be in a marked 
degree above that of all others. Among a thousand 
men and women of that race there will not only be 
found more " beauties " than among the same num- 
ber of other races, but the majoi'ity will be hand- 
somer, " finer," more symmetrically formed, better 
featured, with clearer skins, and a more dignified 
bearing and presence than the majority of any other 
European race with which they may be compared. 

A notion prevailed for some time that this English 
distinction did not obtain in America, but that the 
race had degenerated here. It was a mere notion, 
having its origin in a prejudiced perversion of isolated 
facts ; in the desire of book-writing travelers to find 
something strange, and also derogatory, with which 
to spice their pages ; and in a crfiving, which amounts 
to a mild insanity, among European people, and par- 
ticularly among all classes of the British nation, to 
lay hold of some distinctive " American " quality, 
whether physiological, literary, political, or other, 
and label it, and file it away, and pigeon-hole it for 
reference by way of differencing " Americans " from 
themselves. 

The notion, I venture to sa}', was essentially ab- 
surd. That a race of men should materially change 
its physical ti-aits in the course of two centuries, un- 
der whatever conditions of climate or other external 
influence, is inconsistent with all that we know upon 
this subject. The very temples of Egypt protest 
against it by their pictured records. According to 
the history of mankind, as it is thus far known to 
us, such a change could not take place within such a 

13 



194 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

period, unless to external influences of great modify- 
ing power there were added such an intermingling of 
races as has not yet taken place here more than in 
England itself, although plainly it is to come in fut- 
ure generations. Down to twenty or thirty years ago 
the intermarriage of Yankees — by which name, for 
lack of another, I designate people of English blood 
born in this counti-y — with Irish and Germans was 
so rare as practically, in regard to this question, not 
to exist ; and at that period there was not in England 
itself a more purely English people than that of New 
England. 

What Horace found to be true of the effect of a 
migration across the Adriatic, or the ^gean, or the 
Mediterranean, is equally true of one across the vast, 
storm-vexed Atlantic. Englishmen remain English, 
Frenchmen French, Germans German, and Irishmen 
Irish, even unto the third and the fourth generation. 
It is not lightly that I say this ; not without long and 
careful consideration of the subject ; not without 
knowledge of opinions received, too readily, to the 
contrary. That emigrants to this country or to any 
other find, in many cases, that a change in climate 
and in habits of life produces such temporary and 
superficial chauges in habit of body as may attract 
the attention, if not require the aid, of a physician 
may be true enough. This is not to the point in 
question. Let those of my Yankee readers who are 
really observant upon such subjects consider their 
acquaintances of French, of Highland Scotch, or of 
Dutch descent, or those of Irish and German de- 
scent, if they have any, and see whether to this day 
they do not show, both mentally and bodily, the dis- 
tinctive traits of race, even if their blood has been 



ENGLISH MEN. 195 

under the influence of American skies for eight gen- 
erations, — whether at this day there is in them any 
greater modification of race characteristics than might 
be reasonably expected if each one of these persons 
had been brought to tliis country in his early youth. 

The notion of English degeneracy in "America" 
has, however, been rapidly dying out in Europe, and 
even in England during the last ten or fifteen yeai's. 
The change has been brought about partly by the 
events of our civil war. For the blindest prejudice 
saw that that war was not fought by a physically 
degenerate people, and partly by the increase of 
knowledge obtained, not from carping travelers writ- 
ing books to please a carping public, but from per- 
sonal observation. This I know, not by inference, 
but from Englishmen and others who have been here, 
and who have not written books. The belief, for- 
merly prevalent, that "American" women had in 
their youth pretty doll faces, but at no period of life 
womanly beauty of figure, is passing away before a 
knowledge of the truth ; and I have heard it scouted 
here by Englishmen, who, pointing to the charming 
evidence to the contrary before their eyes, have ex- 
pressed surprise that the traveling book-writers, who 
had given them their pi'evious notions on the subject, 
could have so misrepresented the truth. A colonel 
in the British army, who had been all over the world, 
and with whom I was in New England during the 
war, at a time when a large number of our volun- 
teers were home on furlough, expressed constantly 
his surprise at the " fine men " he saw going about 
in uniform, the equals of whom he said that he had 
never seen as a whole in any army; although he did 
not hesitate to express his dislike of their uniform, 



196 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

or his disgust at the slouching, slovenly way in which 
they carried themselves. I was ready to believe what 
he said ; for I had then just seen the Coldstreams in 
Montreal ; and I had before seen the Spanish regu- 
lar troops in Cuba, who, even the regiment of the; 
Queen, were so small that they looked to me like toy 
soldiers to be kept in a box. 

After I had been in London a week or two, having 
previously visited other places, a London friend, who 
had twice visited "the States," said tome, "Well, 
I suppose you 've been looking at the people here and 
comparing them with those yon 've left at home?" 
" Yes, of course." " Do you find much difference in 
them really?" "No; very little; almost none." 
" You 'i^e right, — quite right. There may be a little 
more fullness of figure and a little more ruddiness ; 
but it's been greatly exaggerated, — gveatly." One 
reason for this exaggeration I learned from the re- 
marks of two English friends to me in this country. 
Some years ago I took one, a gentleman who had 
traveled a good deal, and who held an important 
position in the Queen's household, — and a very out- 
spoken man he was, — to a " private view," at which, 
for a wonder, there was not a miscellaneous throng, 
but just enough people to fill, the rooms pleasantly. 
As we sat together after a tour of the room, looking 
at the company, I asked him to tell me the differ- 
ence between the peoj)le he saw there and those he 
would see on a like occasion at the Royal Academy. 
He sat looking around him in silence for so long a 
time that I thought he was going to pass my ques- 
tion unnoticed, when he said, " I can see no differ- 
ence; none at all, except that there would not be 
quite so many pretty women there, and that there 



ENGLISH MEN. 197 

would be more stout old men and women." The 
other, a lady, of like social position and opportunities 
of observation, who also did not hesitate in her criti- 
cisms, remarked that the chief difference in appear- 
ance between people of the same condition here and 
in England was that here she " didn't see any fat old 
men." She said nothing about fat old women ; not, 
however, that she herself was either fat or old. 

There is this difference among old people, al- 
thousfh even this has been exao;o^erated ; and it is this 
which gives a certain color of truth to the notion I 
have referred to. English men and women do not 
always grow stout and red-faced as they grow old ; 
but after they have passed middle age more of them 
do tend to rubicundity and to protuberant rotundity 
of figure than people of the same age do in " Amer- 
ica." The cause, I am quite sure, is simply — beer. 
Both the color and the rotundity come to a large pro- 
portion of the "Americans" who live in England and 
drink English beer, in English allowance ; which, it 
need hardly be said, could not be the case if there 
had been any essential change in the type of the race. 
But among men under forty and women under thirt}^ 
the difference either in complexion or figure is almost 
inappreciable. 

As to the women, there are at least as many in 
England who are spare and angular of figure as here, 
and of those who have not passed thirt}^ I think 
rather more. The London " Spectator " said some 
years ago, in discussing the Banting diet, I believe, 
that " scragginess was more common in England 
among women than stoutness ; " and it is remarkable 
that the French caricatures of English women always 
represent them as thin, bony, and sharp-featured. 



198 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

In this of course there is a little malice ; but it shows 
the impression left upon the French people by their 
near neighbors. I cannot do better here than to offer 
my readers, in the following passage, a share in one of 
my letters written home ; it has at least the advan- 
tage of recording on the spot impressions received by 
me after careful examination under the most favor- 
able circumstances. I was writing about the beauty 
of the parks : — 

" It is amazing to see the great sj)ace of this little island 
that these English folk have reserved for air and health 
and beauty ; and it is for all, — the poorest and meanest, as 
well as the richest and noblest ; there are no privileged 
classes in this. As to the effect upon their health, I sup- 
pose it must be something, but it shows for very little. 

G [a gentleman who is very strong upon the subject 

of degeneracy, which I have always doubted] will laugh, and 
say that it was a foregone conclusion with me ; but to set 
aside my inference he will be obliged to take the position 
that there is nothing so misleading as facts, except figures. 
I have now seen many hundreds of thousands of English 
men and English women of all classes. I have placed my 
self in positions to examine them closely. At the great 
Birmingham musical festival my seat gave me full view of 
the house, chorus and all. The vast hall was filled with 
people of the middle and upper-middle classes, and at one 
end with members of the highest aristocracy, who occupied 
seats roped off from the rest, and called ' the President's 
seats ; ' — the President being the Marquis of Hertford. At 
the end of the performance, both evening and morning, I has- 
tened to a place where a great part of the audience would 
pass out close before me. At Westminster Abbey I stood 
again and again at the principal door and watched the con- 
gregation as they came out ; I have done the same in swarm- 
ing railway stations ; I have walked through country villages 



ENGLISH MEN. 199 

and cathedral towns ; I know the human physiognomy of 
all quarters of London pretty well ; I have seen the Guards 
and the Heavy Dragoons ; and I say without any hesitation 
that thus far I find that the men and the women are gener- 
ally smaller and less robust than ours, and above all that the 
women are mostly sparer in figure and less blooming than 
ours. The men are ruddier, on the whole ; that is, there are 
more very ruddy men here ; but the number of men without 
color in their cheeks seems to be nearly the same as with us. 
The apparent inconsistency of what I have said is due to 
the fact that the ruddy men and women here are generally 
so very red that they produce a great impression of redness, 
an impression that lasts and remains salient in the memory, 
A delicately graduated and healthy bloom is not very com- 
mon. But the little London 'gent,' with whom Leech has 
made us so familiar, you meet everywhere in the great city. 
Sunday before last, loitering in the cloisters of Westmin- 
ster, I stopped to look at a tablet in the wall. There were 
three of these men before me, and the number soon in- 
creased to seven. I looked over the hats — round felt hats 
— of the whole seven without raising my chin. I remem- 
ber that, like Rosalind, I am ' more than common tall,' but I 
never did anything like that at home. At the Horse 
Guards they put their finest men as mounted sentinels on 
each side of the gate. Well, they are fine fellows, and 
would be very uncomfortable chaps to meet, except in a 
friendly way. A detachment of them riding up St. James's 
Street, the other morning, with their cuirasses like mirrors, 
and the coats of their big black horses almost as bright, was 
a spectacle which it seemed to me could not be surpassed 
for its union of military splendor and the promise of bitter 
business in a fight ; but Maine, or Vermont, or Connecticut, 
or Kentucky can turn out whole regiments of bigger and 

stronger men. Colonel M ^, whom I met in Canada, 

said the same to me when he thought he was talking to an 
Englishman. I wonder that he ever forgave me the things 



200 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

he said to me during his brief self-deception ; for they were 
true. But he was a good fellow, and bore no malice. 
Nevertheless, you sometimes meet here a very fine man, or 
a big, blooming beauty, and in either case the impression is 
stronger and more memoralile than in a like case it is apt 
to be with us ; chiefly, I think, because of their dress and 
' set up,' which in sucli cases — as in that of the Guards and 
Dragoons — is a^ot to be very pronounced." 

I v^ill add here, in passing, that this English " set 
up," particularly in the case of ahuost all English- 
men of any pretensions, is distinctive, and is in a 
great measure the cause of the impression of superior 
good looks and strength on their side. It appears in 
a marked degree in all military persons, rank and file 
as Avell as officers, and in the police force, the men of 
which are on the whole inferior in stature and bulk 
to ours, — leaving the big Broadway squad (most of 
them Yankees) out of the question, — and yet it is 
far superior in appearance to ours, owing to the " set 
up " of the men, and the way in which they carry 
themselves. I observed that, although the upper 
classes contained a fair proportion, although no not- 
able excess, of large and well-formed men and wom- 
en, the burly men and the big-bodied, large-limbed 
women were generally of the lower and the lower- 
middle class. ^ The peasantry are mostly spare in 
figure and short in stature. This made me wonder 
where all the pretty house-maids and shop-girls came 
from ; for, as I have said before, the prettiest faces, 

1 The photographic portraits of Sir Walter and Lady Trevelyan, in Se- 
lections from the Literary and Artistic Remains of the latter, show types 
of the Englishman and Englishwoman which are so common in the upper 
classes and .in the lowest as to be almost characteristic. I may thus refer 
to these portraits without offense, I hope, as they were made public by one 
of the originals, of whom neither is now living. 



ENGLISH MEN. 201 

the most delicately blooming complexions, and the 
finest fignres that I saw in England were among 
them. In a letter written from the Rose Inn at 
Canterbury, a cosy, comfortable old hostelry, I find 
the following passage, which is to the purpose : — 

" I ate my bacon and eggs this morning in the coffee- ' 
room, where, at another table, were three queer English- 
women, yet nice looking, — ajjparently a mother and two 
daughters. The elder daughter was, I will not say a lathy 
girl, but very slim, not only in the waist, but above and be- 
low it. The mother and the younger were plump and rosy, 
absurdly alike, and with that cocked-up nose which is one 
of the very few distmctive peculiarities of feature that you 
see here, — but even this is not common ; and their black 
hair was curled in tight curls all over their heads. I was 
struck by this, because curling hair is comparatively rare 
here, and I had expected to find it common. Theirs was 
cut just like a man's, and plainly so because, if it were al- 
lowed to grow long, it would have been impossible to dress 
it in woman fashion. They were very jolly and pleasant, 
chaffing each other in low, soft voices, and breaking out in 
rich, sweet laughter. They looked like boys masquerading 
in women's clothes ; for the eldest was quite young looking, 
and may have been an elder sister. The youngest, who was 
some seventeen or eighteen years old, looked very fair and 
blooming across the room ; but when I came close to her, 
which I had an opportunity of doing, I found that her color, 
both white and red, was coarse, which is very often the case 
here when there is color. In the mother, or eldest sis- 
ter, this coarseness was apparent even at a distance. But 

see : — Lady and her daL.ghters, although pretty and 

elegant, had no tinge of color in their cheeks, and they were 
all as thin as rails ; and the girls' hair, as well ^as their 
mother's, was as straight as fiddle-strings. I came here 
expecting to see golden curls in plentiful crops, or at least 
not uncommonly. But it seems to me that I have n't seen 



202 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

a dozen curly-haired children since I have been in the coun- 
try ; and I have seen them — the children — by tens of 
thousands, and examined them closely, making memoran- 
dums of my observation. Nor have the ladies of this fam- 
ily (I am now at ) any more bloom than this paper, 

and they are both as thin as Lady and her daugh- 
ters ; Mrs. painfully so. The men, belonging of 

course to another family, are stout, well-built fellows 
enough, but the other two guests are as lean as greyhounds. 
I went to a little dinner party the other evening, and the 
carriage sent to the station for me (for they think nothing 
here of asking you fifteen or twenty miles to dinner, even 
when you are not expected to stay over night) took also a 

Major-General Sir . I was told that he would 

join me, and I expected to see a portly, ruddy man of 
inches, with sweejoing whiskers and mustache. I found a 
short, slender, meek-looking, pale-faced man ; but his bear- 
ing was very military ; he was a charming companion and 
the pink of courtesy. We entered the drawing-room to- 
gether, of course ; but, notwithstanding his rank, he waved 
me in before him, and my plain Mistership was announced 
before his titles. I have seen no men here at all equal in 
face or figure to General Hooker, General Hancock, Gen- 
eral Augur, or General Terry, to say nothing of General 
Scott, who was something out of the common even with us. 
And Burnside and McDowell and Grant and McClellan 
are all stouter men than you are apt to find here. The 
biggest men that I have seen were from the north, York- 
shire and Northumberland. Those of the south, particu- 
larly in Kent, are the shortest ; although, as a Kent man 
said to me, they are generally ' stocky.' " ^ 

1 Mr. Jennings, formerly the resident New York correspondent of the 
London Times, late editor of the New York Times, now London corre- 
spondent of the World, in a recent letter describing the opening of Par- 
liament by the Queen in person, on which occasion the House of Lords 
was filled with peers and peeresses, writes thus with i-egard to the beauty 
of the women and the presence and figures of the men: — 

" On this occasion the ladies overflowed the House. Early as it still 



ENGLISH MEN. 203 

A New England man now living in England, who 
made liis house very delightful to me, first by the 
presence of himself and his family, and next by the 
kindest and most considerate hospitality, is an ever- 
present rebuke of the stoutest sort to the British 
notion of the physical degeneracy of the English race 
in " America." He, a Yankee of the old Puritan 
emigration, is five feet ten and a half inches high, is 
forty-eight inches, four good feet, in girth around the 
chest, weighs two hundred pounds, and yet has not 
the least appearance even of stoutness, — rather the 
contrary. He is the only man I ever met whose 
friendly grip was rather more than I liked to bear. 
I spoke to his wife about his strength and his figure, 
and she told me that when he went to get his life in- 
sured here the surgeons said that they very rarely saw 

was, the floor was covered with them ; large blocks of the benches were 
occupied, and the galleries were crowded. All these ladies were in even- 
ing toilets, the peeresses wearing coronets of diamonds, — most of them 
being fairly ablaze with diamonds on head and neck. If the daylight was 
not ver}' favorable to the shoulders or complexions of some of these noble 
dames, the gorgeousness of their costumes and the glitter of their precious 
stones served to divert attention from the defects of nature or the ravages 

of time Not many of these ladies in the House were very pretty, 

although here and there was a face such as makes one stop short and 
hold one's breath, and wonder at the divine perfection of nature's handi- 
work when she is at her best As for the old bald-headed gentlemen, 

some of them very short and stumpy, they looked painfully like a col- 
lection of ' senators ' in some opera bouffe. One of them in particular, 
with four ermine bars on his cloak, denoting his high rank, was exactly 
like the funny-looking dummy Englishman which the French delight to 
exhibit in their farces. He had very little hair left to boast of, and that 
little was very red; and his face was round and red also ; and he was alto- 
gether so comic a little man that one could not look at him without a 
smile. I could not find out who he was till the ro_val procession entered, 

when he suddenly reappeared in great pomp and state So much for 

appearances." 

Mr. Jennings, it should be remembered, is an Englishman, but he lived 
eight or ten years in New York ; and I may be pardoned for saying that 
he carried away a constant reminder of "American " beauty, and a stand- 
ard of comparison which would be likely to make him fastidious. 



204 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

such a powerful, finely formed, and perfectly liealthy 
man as he is, and never any finer or healthier. That 
would be impossible. And as he is so was his father. 
Were they exceptions ? Only of a sort that con- 
stantly occur among real Yankees, — "Americans" 
whose families have been in the country for gen- 
erations, and who are the only proper examples of 
the influence of the climate and the social conditions 
of the country. 

I have, perhaps, said too much upon this subject 
of the comparative physical condition of the race in 
the two countries ; but I have been led to do so be- 
cause of the very great inconsistency I found between 
the facts and the common notion as to stout English 
men and lean " Americans," blooming, buxom Eng- 
lish women and pale, slender "American " women, — 
a notion which one writer has repeated, parrot-like, 
after the other, until even we ourselves have accepted 
it without question. Like many other notions which 
no one disputes, it is false. But the world has gone 
on accepting it and assuming it to be true, until it 
has so taken possession of the general mind that if in 
a room full of English people only one man were 
found ruddy and burly, and only one woman bloom- 
ing and well rounded (and this, or something very 
like it, I have seen more than once), they would be 
picked out and spoken of as English-looking, to the 
disregard of all the others. The exceptions would 
be taken as examples of the rule ; and this by the 
English themselves ; so swayed are we all by tradi- 
tion and authority, even in such an every-day matter. 
Nay, even I myself, skeptical and carping, was thus 
misled. 

The steamer in which I went over was filled chiefly 



ENGLISH MEN. 205 

with English people. Two of my fellow-passengers 
I selected in my mind as notably and typically Eng- 
lish, not only in person, but in bearing. They 
proved to be, one a Massachusetts Yankee and the 
other a Western man ; but both had from association 
contracted English habits of dress and of manner. 
Two Englishwomen, however, attracted my partic- 
ular attention. One was, I think, the very largest 
human female I ever saw outside of a " show." She 
was a fearful manifestation of the enormous develop- 
ment of solid flesh which the British fair sometimes 
attain. As she stood by her husband she was the 
taller from the ear upward. She must have weighed 
about twenty stone. I think that a plumb line 
dropped from the front of her corsage would have 
reached the deck without touching her ample skirts. 
Her tread was hippopotamic. And yet she showed 
traces of beauty, and not improbably had been a fine, 
fair girl ; and even at the present time she managed 
to effect a very palpable waist. I mused wonder- 
ingly upon the process by which she did this ; but 
still more upon that sad gradual enormification by 
which she passed from a tall blooming beauty into 
her present tremendous proportions. The other was 
exactly the reverse. She could hardly be called ill- 
looking in the face ; but her pale, blank, unfeatured 
countenance reminded one instantly of a sheep. She 
was a washed-out and, although young, a faded creat- 
ure, with no more shape than my forefinger. And 
yet she was a perfect English type, and so like some 
of John Leech's women that I could not look at her 
without internal laughter. ^ Her husband — for even 

1 Mr. Du Maurier, characterist rather than caricaturist, gives this sheep 
face to his typical Ducliess of Stilton, and to her two daughters. See 
Punch for February 26, 1881. 



206 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

such women by some mysterious process kiiown to 
themselves will get husbands — was like unto her in 
face, in feature, and in expression ; and yet he was 
so strikingly, so aggressively British in look and 
in manner that I heard some Yankees on board say 
that they would like to kick him. At first I some- 
what shared their prejudice, of which, before we 
landed I learned to be ashamed; for I found him 
a very intelligent, well-informed, pleasant man, re- 
served in his manners, and although firm in his 
opinions, which were strongly British, very respect- 
ful of other men's, and very careful of giving of- 
fense. His union of firmness and courtesy seemed 
to me worthy of admiration ; and if he did wish to 
kick any of the Yankees on board, for which in one 
or two cases I could have forgiven him, I am sure 
that he never let the desire manifest itself in their 
presence. 

Another prevalent notion, which is reciprocal be- 
tween the people of the two countries, is mistaken, 
according to my observation. It is generally be- 
lieved, or at least very often said, in " America " that 
the men in England are very much handsomer than 
the women ; and, conversely, it is commonly believed 
in England, or said, that the women in " Amei-ica " 
are handsomer than the men. An absurd and truly 
preposterous notion, as will be seen upon a moment's 
reflection. For the women in both countries are the 
mothers of both the men and the women ; and the 
men are the fathers of both the men and the women ; 
and as some of the women are of their fathers' types 
and some of the men of their mothers', the imputed 
difference of the two in personal beauty could not be 
brought about. It is physiologically impossible that 



ENGLISH MEN. 207 

the women of a race should be handsomev than the 
men, and vice versa. 

It is nevertheless true that the men in England 
are on the whole more attractive to the eye than the r 
women, and that the women in "America " are gen- 
erally much more attractive than the men. The 
cause of this is a fact very distinctive of the social 
surface of the two countries. I have spoken of the 
" set up " and the bearing of the men in England. 
It is very remarkable, and is far superior to anything 
of the kind that is found even among the most culti- 
vated people in this country, except in comparatively 
rare individual cases. But in England it is common ; 
it is the rule. There, from the middle classes up, a 
slovenly man is a rare exception. There men are al- 
most universally neat and tidy, and they carry them- 
selves with a conscious self-respect. They do not 
slouch. They do not go about, even in the morning, 
with coats unbuttoned, skirts flying, and their hands 
in their overcoat pockets. They dress soberly, 
quietly, with manly simplicity, but almost always in 
good taste, and with notable neatness. They are 
manly-looking men, with an air of conscious man- 
hood. Moreover, in England the man is still recog- . 
nized as the superior. England has been called the ' 
purgatory of horses and the paradise of women. But 
that saying came from the continent of Europe, 
where women, except in the very highest and most 
cultivated classes, are not treated with that tender- 
ness and consideration for their weakness and their 
womanly functions which I am inclined to think is 
somewhat peculiar to the English race. 

I should call England the paradise of men ; for 
there the world is made for them ; and women are 



208 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

happy in making it so. An Englishman who is the 
head of a family is not only master of his house, but 
of the whole household. His will is recognized as 
the law of that household. No one thinks of disput- 
ing it. It is not deemed unreasonable that in the 
house which he provides and keeps up, his comfort 
and his convenience should be first considered, or that, 
as he is responsible for his household both to the law 
and to society, authority should go with responsibil- 
ity. And yet — perhaps for this very reason — 
wives there have the household affairs more abso- 
lutely in their hands than they have here. A man 
whose absolute authority is acknowledged, practically 
as well as theoretically, is very ready to make con- 
cessions and to lay aside what at any time he may 
assume. Real monarchs, like the Czars or like the 
Tudors, are careless of the protection of royal eti- 
quette. The consciousness of this acknowledged, or 
rather unquestioned, superiority shows itself in the 
men's faces, and in their bearing, simple and unpre- 
tending as their manner is. 

Besides all this, men in England (I am leaving 
out of consideration the lower classes) show the 
effect of cultivation, of breeding, of discipline. Even 
in the middle classes they are well informed, and, 
what is of more importance to the present question, 
they have been taught to behave themselves respect- 
fully to others. They do so behave ; they feel that 
they ought to do so, and that they must. There are 
two gods worshiped in England, and one is propri- 
ety ; and a very good god he is, when he is not made 
a Juggernaut. The result of all this is, a man not 
much unlike in reality, but very different in appear- 
ance from him who generally pervades " America." 



ENGLISH men: 209 

The latter may be, and generally is, as handsome 
physically as the former; he may be, and generally 
is, as good morally : but the one generally shows for 
all that he is, and perhaps for more, while the other 
does not, and frequently does for less. And yet 
again : — among such men in England as those whom 
I have described another sort, who, for example, say 
"hadn't oughter" and "have came," and who spit 
upon the floor, are not generally found mingling. 
They are kept in social pens by themselves. And 
thus in judging of English society they are left out. 

14 



CHAPTER X. 

ENGLISH WOMEK. 

A LADY whom I had the honor and the pleasure 
of taking in to dinner at a country house near Lon- 
don, and whom I had soon found to be one of those 
simple-minded, good-natured, truth-telling women who 
are notably common in England, spoke to me about 
some ladies who on a pi-evious day had attracted her 
attention, adding, " I knew they were Americans." 
"How?" I asked. "Oh, we always know Ameri- 
can women!" "But how, pray?" She thought a 
moment, and answered, " By their beauty, — they 
are almost always pretty, if not more, — by their fine 
complexions, and by their exquisite dress." I did 
not tell her that I thought her discrimination just ; 
but that it was so I had by that time become con- 
vinced. And yet I should say that the most beauti- 
ful women I have ever seen were Englishwomen, were 
it not for the memory of an Irishwoman, a French- 
woman, a German, and a Czech. But the latter 
were exceptional. Beauty is very much commoner 
among women of the English race than among those 
of any other with which I am acquainted ; and among 
that race it is commoner in " America " than in Eng- 
land. I saw more beauty of face and figure at the 
first two receptions which I attended after my return 
than I had found among the hundreds of thousands 
of women whom I had seen in England. 



ENGLISH WOMEN. 211 

The types are the same in both countries ; but 
they seem to come near to perfection oftener here 
than there. Beauty of feature, however, although 
rai'er, is sometimes found more clearlj'^ defined in Eng- 
land. The mouth in particular, when it is beautiful, 
is more statuesque. The curves are more decided, 
and at the junction of the red of the lips with the 
white there is a delicately raised outline which marks 
the form of the feature in a very noble way. This 
may also be said of the nostril. It gives a chiseled 
effect to those features which is not so often found 
in "America;" but the nose itself, the brow, and 
the set and carriage of the head are generally finer 
among " Americans." In both countries, however, 
the head is apt to be too large for perfect proportion. 
This is a characteristic defect of the English type of 
beauty. Its effect is seen in Stothard's figures, in 
Etty's, and in those of other English painters. An- 
other defect is in the heaviness of the articulations. 
Plump arms are not uncommon, but really fine arms 
are i-are ; and fine wrists are still rarer. Such wrists 
as the Viennoise women have — of which I saw a 
wonderful example in the Viennoise wife of a Sus- 
sex gentleman — are almost unknown among women 
of English race in either country. It is often said, 
even in England, that the feet of "American " wornen 
are more beautiful than those of Englishwomen. 
This I am inclined to doubt. The feet may be 
smaller here ; and they generally look smaller be- 
cause Englishwomen wear larger and heavier shoes. 
They are obliged to do so because they walk more, 
and because of their moister climate. But mere 
smallness is not beauty either in the feet or in any 
other part of the body. Beauty is the result of shape, 



212 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

proportion, and color ; and feet are often cramped 
out of shape and out of proportion in other countries 
than China. To be beautiful the foot should seem 
the fit support for the body, in rest or in motion. 
It is said by some persons, who by saying it profess 
to know, that nature, prodigal of charms to Eng- 
lishwomen in bust, shoulders, and arras, is chary 
of them elsewhere, and that their beauty of figure 
is apt to stop at the waist. Upon this point 1 do 
not venture to give an opinion ; but I am inclined 
to doubt the judgment in question upon general phys- 
iological principles. The human figure is the devel- 
opment of a germ ; and it is not natural that, what- 
ever may be the case with individuals, the type of 
a whole race in one country should present this in- 
consistency. Possibly those who started this notion 
were unfortunate in their occasions of observation 
and comparison. 

There is more beauty in the south of England 
than in the north. When I left Birmingham on my 
way southward, although in addition to my observa- 
tion northward I had there the opportunity^ of seeing 
the great throngs, chiefly of women, called together 
by the triennial musical festival, my eyes had begun 
to long for the sight of beauty. The women were 
not all homely; but they were mostly hard-featured, 
without bloom, and whether thick or thin, ungainly. 
I found a great improvement in this respect in the 
lower counties ; and in London of course more than 
elsewhere. For it is remarkable that, according to 
some law which has never yet been formulated, or 
from some cause quite undiscovered, perhaps undis- 
5 severable, beautiful women are always found in the 
greatest numbers where there are the most men and 
the most money. 



ENGLISH WOMEN. 213 

Much has been said about the complexion of the 
women of England, which has been greatly praised. 
I did not find it exceptionally beautiful. It is often 
fresh, oftener rudd}^, but still oftener coarse. A del- 
icate, finely-graduated bloom is not common ; and 
the white is still oftener uot like that of a lily, or, 
better, of a white rose, but of some much coarser 
object in nature. Pale, sallow women are quite as 
common as they are in any of the United States with 
which I am acquainted. It is true that in making 
these odious comparisons I cannot forget certain 
women, too common in " America," who seem to be 
composed in equal parts of mind and leather, the 
elements of body and soul being left out so far as is 
consistent with existence in human form. But such 
women are also to be found in England, although 
perhaps in fewer numbers than here.^ 

As to dress, that, as a man, I must regard as a 
purely adventitious and an essentially unimportant 
matter. If a woman be beautiful, or charming with- 
out positive beauty, a man cares very little in what 
she is dressed, if she but seems at ease in her ap- 
parel, and its color is becoming and harmonious. 
Moreover, there is no greater mistake than the as- 
sumption that being dressed in good taste is indica- 
tive of good breeding, of education, or of social ad- 

1 I find, in the not very justifiable description given in a New York 
newspaper of a distinguislied Englisti family resident in an " American" 
town, the following paragraph, from which I omit the name: — 

" The young daughters of the family are described as tall and slen- 
der, with sweet but ralher plain faces, and complexions of that sallow 
paleness supposed to be unknown to consumers of the roast beef and 
plum pirdding of England. They dress with the greatest plainness, their 
abundant light hair braided and tied with ribbons, their dresses rather 
short and free from unnatural expansion, and their shoes, which are not 
at all diminutive, have soles thicker than any American shoemaker would 
dare to make." 



214 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

vantage of any kind. Nor is it even a sign of good 
taste in any other particnlar. You shall see a woman 
who has come out of the slums, and whose life is 
worthy of her origin and her breeding, and she shall 
dress herself daily, morning, noon, and night, with 
such an exquisite sense of fitness in all things, with 
such an instinctive appreciation of harmony of out- 
line and color, that your eye will be soothed with the 
sight of her garments ; and she shall nevertheless be 
vulgar in mind and manners, sordid in soul, in her life 
equally gross and frivolous. And the converse is no 
less true. Women most happy in the circumstances 
of their birth and breeding, intelligent, cultivated, 
charming, of whose sympathy in regard to anything 
good or beautiful you may be sure, will dress them- 
selves in such an incongruous, heterogeneous fashion 
that the beauty which they often possess triumphs 
with difficulty over their effort to adorn it. 

I feel, therefore, that I am saying very little in 
dispraise of Englishwomen when I say that in gen- 
eral they are the worst dressed human creatures that 
I ever saw, except, perhaps, the female half of a cei- 
tain class of Germans. The reputation that they have 
in this respect among Frenchwomen and " Ameri- 
cans " is i-ichly deserved. Good taste is simply ab- 
sent. The notion of fitness, congruity, and •' concat- 
enation accordingly " does not exist. . In form the 
Englishwoman's dress is too often dowdy, in color 
frightful. If not color-blind, she seems generally to 
be blind to the effect of color, either singly or in com- 
bination. At a morning concert I saw a lady in a 
rich red-purple (plum color) silk, — high around the 
neck, of course, — and over this swept a necklace of 
enormous coral beads ! It made one's eyes ache to 



ENGLISH WOMEN. 215 

look at her. This was not an nncommon, but a char- 
acteristic instance. Such combinations may be justly 
regarded as the rule in Englishwomen's dress. For 
purple they have strong liking. They not only wear 
it in gOAvns, but they use it for trimming, m bands 
and flounces, in ribbons, in feathers. They combine 
it with all other colors. An Englishwoman seems to 
think herself " made " if she can deck herself in some 
way with purple silk or velvet, or ribbons or feathers. 
Of course I am excepting from these remarks a few 
who have intuitive good taste, and other few who 
employ French modistes, and who submit without 
question to their authority. The latter condition is 
essential ; for even when the main body of an Eng- 
lishwoman's dress is in good taste, she is very apt to 
destroy its effect by some incongruous addition from 
her stores of heterogeneous jewels, or by some other 
ornament, — a collar, a cape, a fichu, or a ribbon. 
They have a sad way of putting forlorn things about 
their necks and on their heads which is very de- 
pressing, unless it is astonishing, which sometimes 
happens. An Englishwoman will be tolerably well 
dressed, and then will make a bundle of herself by 
tying up her neck and shoulders in a huge piece of 
lace ; or she will wear specimens of two or three sets 
of jewels ; or she will put a colored feather in her hair, 
or a bonnet on her head, that would tempt a tyrant 
to bring it to the block. I remember seeing a peer- 
ess whose family was noble in t^e Middle Ages riding 
with an " American" lady who had not as much to 
spend in a year as the other had in a week ; but the 
former was so obtrusively ill dressed and the latter 
with such good taste and simplicity that, both being 
unusually intelligent, both perfectly well bred and 



216 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

self-possessed, and both fine healthy women, a person 
ignorant of their rank would have been likely to mis- 
take the latter for the noblewoman. 

It has been said that Englishwomen dress better in 
full evening dress than in what is known as demi-toi- 
lette. I cannot think so. It is not the English dress 
that then looks better, but the English woman ; that 
is, if she has fine shoulders, breasts, and arms. It is 
the beauty that is revealed, the woman pure and sim- 
ple, that pleases the eye, just as is the case elsewhere. 
For the things that an Englishwoman will put on, or 
put half off herself, in the evening, are amazing to 
behold. An Englishwoman in full dress who has not 
a fine figure is even more dowdy than she is in the 
morning. For then she is likely to be at least neat 
and tidy, and she may wear a gown that is compara- 
tively unobtrusive in form and color. Indeed, the 
best dress that the average Englishwoman wears is 
that in which she walks, which is apt to be of some 
sober color, — black, gray, light or dark, or a dark 
soft blue, — and to be entirely without ornament, — 
not a flounce or a bow, or even a button except for 
use, — with a bonnet, or oftener a hat, equally sober 
in tint and in form. And this is best for her ; in this 
she is safe. If she would not risk offense, lej: her en- 
fold herself thus. Let her by no means wander forth 
into the wilderness of mingled colors : " that way 
madness lies." This outward show is in no way the 
consequence of carelessness. No one in England 
seems to be careless about anything, least of all a 
woman about her dress. It is helpless, hopeless, 
elaborated dowdyism. 

And yet as I write there rise up against me, with 
sweet, reproachful faces, figures draped worthily of 



ENGLISH WOMEN. 217 

their beauty ; and more could not be said even for 
the work of Worth hiuiself. One of many I partic- 
ulai-ly remember, with whom I took five o'clock tea 
at the house of a clergyman of distinction, and who 
bore a name that may be found in the " Peveril of 
the Peak." Her bright intelligence and her rich 
beauty (her oval cheek was olive) would have made 
me indifferent to her dress had it been a homespun 
bed-gown. Bat shall I ever forget the beautiful curves 
and tint of that soft-gray broad-leafed felt hat and 
feather, the elegance of the dark carriage dress that 
harmonized so well with it, or the perfect glove upon 
the hand that was held out so frankl}^ to bid me good- 
by? No, fair British friends, it is not you that I 
mean ; it is those other women whom I saw, but did 
not know. 

It is because of the average Englishwoman's sad 
failure in dressing herself that the notion has got 
abroad that Englishmen are finer looking than Eng- 
lishwomen. For the dress of the men is notably in 
good taste. It is simple, manly, neat ; and although 
sober in tint and snug in cut, it is likely to have its 
general sobriety lightened up with a little touch of 
bright, warm color. On the other hand, the dress of 
" American " men is generally far, very, verv far, in- 
ferior to that of the women in the corresponding con- 
ditions of life. This helps to produce the correspond- 
ing mistaken notion that the women in "America" 
are handsomer than the men ; upon the incorrectness 
and essential absurdity of which I have already com- 
mented. 

As to another attributed superiority of the Yankee 
woman I must express my surprised dissent. It is 
not uncommon to hear their intelligence and their 



218 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

social qualities rated much higher than those of their 
sisters in England. Fair countrywomen, heed not 
this flattery. It is not true. The typical English- 
woman of the upper and upper-middle class has in 
strength of mind and in information no type coun- 
terpart in " America." She may not know Latin, or 
she may and get little good by it ; she may not be 
brilliant, or quick, or self-adaptive, and she generally 
is not ; but she is well informed both as to the past 
and the present ; she shows the effect rather of true 
education than of school cramming, of culture inher- 
ited and slowly acquired, and of intercourse with able, 
highly educated, and cultivated men. She generally 
has some accomplishment, which she has acquired in 
no mere showy boarding-school fashion, but with a 
respectable thoroughness. England is full of ladies 
who draw well in water-colors, or who are musicians, 
not mere piano players, or who are botanists, or who 
write well, and who add one or more of such acquire- 
ments to a solid general education, a considerable 
knowledge of affairs, and the ability to manage a 
large household. 

The conversation of the society in which such 
women are found is far more interesting, far worthier 
of respect, than that which is heard in fashionable so- 
ciety (and these women are fashionable) in " Amer- 
ica." And this without any reproach to the latter. 
For how could it be otherwise than that women who 
are the daughters, sisters, and wives of men who are 
themselves highly educated, and who have the affairs 
of a great empire, if not in their hands, at least upon 
their minds, should in all that can be acquired by in- 
tercourse with such men be superior to others, most 
of whom bear the same relations to men who are 



■-'i^r 



ENGLISH WOMEN. 219 

necessaidly inferior in all these respects, who are ab- 
sorbed in business, and who know little beyond their 
business, except what can be learned from the hur- 
ried reading of newspapers not of the highest type 
of journalism ? 

In England there is not only accumulated wealth, 
but accumulated culture ; and of this the result ap- 
pears hardly more in the men than in the women. It 
could not be otherwise. Englishwomen are compan- 
ions and friends and helps to their fathers, their 
husbands, to all the men of their household. They 
are not absorbed in the mere external affairs of so- 
ciety ; and society is not entirely in their hands. 
Men, men of mature years, form the substance of 
English society ; they give it its tone ; women, its 
grace and its ornament. Even in the English- 
woman's drawing-room the Englishman is looked up 
to and treated with deference. The talk and the 
tone must be such as he approves. She finds her 
pleasure as well as her duty in making it such as 
pleases him. She is even there his companion, his 
friend, his help. No matter how clever or brilliant 
she may be, she does not seek tenir salon, like the 
French female bel esprit. No matter how beautiful 
or how fashionable she may be, she does not leave 
him out of her society arrangements ; unless, indeed, 
in either case, she chooses to set propriety at naught, 
and brave an accusation of " bad form." And 
should she attempt this, she would in most cases 
soon be checked by a very decided interposition of 
marital authority. One result of all this is a soberer 
tone in mixed society than we are accustomed to, 
and the discussion of graver topics in general conver- 
sation. 



220 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

And yet in the English household the woman is 
quite supreme, — much more so, I think, than she is 
in " America." She really manages all household 
affairs, troubling her husband with no details, but be- 
ing careful to manage in such a way as to meet his 
wishes. For, as I have said before, the wish of the 
master of an English houseliold is the law of that 
household. Notwithstanding which, I have been 
led to the firm belief that henpecking is far more 
common in England than it is with us, and that cur- 
tain lectures are much often er delivered there than 
here. "Mrs. Caudle's Curtain Lectures" would 
hardly have suggested themselves to an " American " 
humorist, although the thing itself — if not in its 
perfection, in its germ — is sufficiently known here 
to make the humor and the satire of that series not 
quite inappreciable. And, strange to say, the average 
English husband seems to be a less independent 
creature than the " American." English wives more 
generally insist upon their prerogative of sitting sol- 
emnly up for their husbands at night ; and latch- 
keys are regarded as a personal grievance. What 
" American " wife would think of making a fuss 
about a man's having a latch-key ? Not a few of 
them, indeed, have one themselves. And yet I have 
seen an Englishwoman of the lower-middle class 
flush and choke and whimper when the subject of 
the inalienable right of a man to a latch-key to his 
own house was broached, and begin to talk about the 
worm turning when it is trampled upon. 

The devotion of Englishwomen to their families, 
and particularly to their children, cannot be surpassed. 
I believe that they are the best, the most self-sacrific- 
ing daughters, wives, and mothers in the world, ex- 



ENGLISH WOMEN. 221 

cept the good daughters and wives and mothers in 
" America ; " and even them I believe they generally 
surpass in submissiveness and thoughtful consider- 
ation. But this is the result of the general subordi- 
nation which in all things pervades English society. 
They have little coquetry, and are not remarkable 
for social tact. They are chiefly the sensible com- 
panions and helpers, subordinate but trusted, of their 
fathers, brothers, husbands, and lovers, over whose 
interests they watch with fond assiduity ; but in a 
very simple, direct way. Mrs. Grote, with her " I '11 
thank you for a sovereign," when she lent a book, 
was a characteristic manifestation, grotesquely exag- 
gerated indeed, of a large and very valuable, if not 
very charming, sort of Englishwoman, who does not 
disdain to show and to put in practice, particularly 
for her family, a certain hard common-sense selfish- 
ness, which is felt more directly as an active social 
force in England than in " America." 

It is generally believed in England, I cannot tell 
why, that women in " America " take part in public 
affairs, and are much more in the eye of the world 
than Englishwomen are. Of this belief I met with 
an amusing instance. One day at dinner in a coun- 
try'- house, I had on one side of me a gentleman who 
had come in alone for lack of ladies enough to " go 
round ; " it was a small family party. He was the 
brother of my hostess, a fine, intelligent fellow about 
twenty-three years old, who had just taken his bach- 
elor's degree at Oxford. As I turned from his sister 
to him, in a pause of conversation, he asked me with 
great earnestness, almost with solemnity, " Is — it — 
true — that — in — America — the — women — sit — 
on — juries?" I instantly answered, in the most 



222 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

matter-of-course way, " Yes ; all of them wlio are 
not on duty as sergeants of dragoons." For one per- 
ceptible delightful moment doubt and bewilderment 
flashed through his bright, handsome eyes, and then 
he, as well as others within ear-shot, appreciated the 
situation, and there was a hearty laugh and an in- 
genuous blush mantled his cheeks, — for young men 
can blush in England. When I explained that in no 
])art of that strange country, "America," with which 
I was acquainted did women sit on juries, or take 
any part in public affairs, or even vote or go to pub- 
lic meetings, and that nine in ten of the women that 
I knew would be puzzled to tell who represented in 
Congress the districts in which they lived, who were 
the senators from their States, and possibly who 
were their governors, I was listened to with 'pro- 
found attention ; and the surprise of my hearers was 
very manifest, and was strongly expressed. It could 
hardly have been otherwise ; for nothing that I could 
have said would have brought into clearer light the 
fact that women in " America " are very much less 
informed upon public affairs and take very much less 
interest in them than is the case with almost all Eng- 
lishwomen of the cultivated classes.^ 

In England almost all intelligent women of the 
upper and upper-middle classes take a very lively in- 
terest in politics, and are tolerably well informed 
upon the public questions of the day, upon which in 
many cases they have no inconsiderable influence. 

1 Mr. Edward Everett Hale, of Boston, recently said that he has "within 
six months talked with a highly cultivated American woman who did not 
know the difference between a senator and a representative in Congress." 
And lie "went into a public school one day, and asked a question about 
the battle of Brandywine, to And that the class had never heard of it, and 
was only amused by the drolluess of the name." 



ENGLISH WOMEN. 223 

The reason of this is that political life and the social 
life of the upper classes there are so thoroughly in- 
termingled. Politics form the chief concern of the 
members of those classes ; apart, of course, from 
their own private affairs. Hardly a woman of that 
class is without a husband, brother, kinsman, or 
friend who is, or w^ho has been, or who hopes to be, 
a member of Parliament, or who is in diplomacy or 
connected in some way with colonial affairs. Pol- 
itics there are intimately connected with the great 
object of woman's life in modern days, — social suc- 
cess. It is difficult for women in England, and even 
for men, to understand the entire severance of poli- 
tics and society which obtains in " America," and to 
believe that a man may be a member of Congress, 
or e^^en a senator, and yet be entirely without so- 
cial position. Politics there are the most interesting 
topic of conversation among intelligent and culti- 
vated people in general society ; and such an ac- 
quaintance with political questions and party manoeu- 
vres as is here confined to a very small class of women 
whose relations to public men are peculiar, and who 
" go to Washington," is there very common among 
all women of su23erior position. 

Of this I met with a striking illustration on my 
way from Warwick to Coventry. As I was about 
entering the railway carriage, a friend, an English- 
man, who was kindly traveling with me for a day or 
two, and " coaching " me, told the porter who had 
my portmanteau to put it into the carriage. This, 
by the way, is permitted there. If there is room, 
and no one objects, you may take a huge trunk into 
a fii'st-class railway carriage. One could hardly 
be taken into a second-class carriage for lack of 



224 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

room ; and a third-class carriage is hardly larger 
than that marvelous institution known to American 
women — but to no others — as a Saratoga trunk. I 
objected to my friend's proposal, because there was 
a lady in the carriage. She was standing with her 
back to me as I spoke, but she immediately turned, 
and said, in a clear, sweet voice, " Oh, yes ; bring it 
in ; never mind me ; there 's quite room enough." I 
never saw a more elegant woman. She was about 
forty years old, still very handsome, tall, with a fine, 
lithe figure, and a gentle loftiness of manner which I 
might have called aristocratic, had she not reminded 
me strongly in every way of an " American " woman 
whom I had known from my boyhood. Nothing 
could have been more simple, frank, and good-natured 
than the way in which she made me and ray luggage 
welcome. Her maid, who was standing by her, and 
who was herself quite a lady-like person, soon left us 
to take her place in a second-class carriage, and we 
three were left in possession. 

The ti'ain started with that gentle, unobtrusive mo- 
tion which is usual on English railways, and we fell 
into the chat of fellow-travelers. I was charmed 
with her. Her voice and her manner of speech would 
have made the recitation of the multiplication table 
agreeable. She had a son at Oxford, which I had 
left a few days before, and it proved that we had 
common acquaintances there. She showed, with all 
her superiority of manner, social and personal, — for 
she was what would have been called in the last 
generation a superior woman, — that deference to 
manhood which I have mentioned before as a trait of 
Englishwomen. Erelong my companion mentioned 
that we had been at Kenilworth that dav- She re- 



ENGLISH WOMEN. 225 

plied, " Oil, I must go there. I have never been. 
Why ! it is just like Americans to go to Kenilworth. 
All the Americans go to Kenilv^^orth, and to War- 
wick Castle, and to Stratford." My companion re- 
plied that we had been at all those places. She 
laughed merrily, and said, " You ought to have been 
Americans to do that." My friend then told her that 
I was an " American." She turned upon me al- 
most with a stare, and after a moment of silence 
spoke to me again, but with a perceptible and very 
remarkable change of manner. It was very slight, — 
of a delicate^ fineness. Her courtesy was not in the 
least diminished, nor her frankness ; but the perfectly 
unconscious and careless expression of her face was 
impaired, and her attention to me was a little more 
pronounced than it had been before. She inquired 
if I had been pleased with my visit to Kenilworth, 
and told me that a novel had been written about it 
by Sir Walter Scott. " But," she added, " perhaps 
you have read it. Have you met with it ? " I an- 
swered, " I have heard of it ; " and ray inward satis- 
faction was great when I saw that I had done so with 
a face so unmoved that she replied with a gracious 
instructiveness of manner, " Oh, you should have 
read it before you went to Kenilworth ; it would so 
have increased your pleasure. But the next best 
thing for you is to read it now." I thanked her, and 
said that I should like to do so. I think that she would 
have gone on to recommend a perusal of the works of 
William Shakespeare to me in connection with my 
visit to Stratford-on-Avon, although she looked at 
me in a puzzled way once or twice. But my com- 
panion, although I saw he was amused at something 
in her talk, marred whatever hopes I had of further 

15 



226 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

instruction by breaking in with some remark upon 
the politics of Warwickshire. She rose to his fly- 
like a trout on a hazy day, and in a minute or two 
she had forgotten my existence in her discussion with 
him of a topic which plainly was to her of far more 
interest than all the Scotts that could have dwelt in 
Kenilworth, and all the Shakespeares that could have 
stood in Stratford. He was a Birmingham notable, 
and knew everything that was going on in the county ; 
but she was his equal in information, and it seemed 
to me his superior in political craft. To every sugges- 
tion of his she made some reply that showed that the 
question was not new to her. She knew all the ins 
and outs of the politics of the county : who could be 
expected to support this measure, who was sure to 
oppose that. She knew all about the manufacturing 
interests of Birmingham : who had retired from act- 
ive management ; who was coming in ; what money 
had been taken out of this establishment, what 
changes had taken place in the other, — and had an 
opinion as to what effect this was going to have upon 
Parliament. I never heard the beginning of such 
political talk from a woman in " America," even 
from one whose husband was in politics. The train 
stopped ; her maid appeared, and she bade us court- 
eously good-by, with the puzzled look in her eye as 
it rested upon the fellow-passenger to whom she had 
recommended the perusal of " Kenilworth ; " and 
then my companion told me, what indeed I had been 
sure of all along, that she was a member of the gov- 
erning class. 

A few days before, I had observed in Oxford, 
where a local election was impending, small posters 
addressed to " The Burgesses," and these invariably 



ENGLISH WOMEN. 227 

began, '^Ladies and Gentlemen," a form of " cam- 
paign document " as foreign to us as it would be to 
peoples subject to the Salique law, — than which 
worse laws have long prevailed in many countries. 

Not only in politics but in business women appear 
much more prominently than they do in " America." 
If they do not keep hotels, which they sometimes do, 
they manage them, whether they are great or small. 
The place which in " America " is filled by that ex- 
quisite, awful, and imperturbable being, the hotel 
clerk, is filled invariably in England by a woman, — 
so at least I always found it, and the change seemed 
to me a very happy one. To be met by the cheery, 
pleasant faces of these bright, well-mannered women, 
to be spoken to as if you were a human being whom, 
in consideration of what you are to pay, it was a 
pleasure to make as comfortable as possible, instead 
of being treated with lofty condescension, or at best 
with serene indifference, was a pleasant sensation. 
And these women did their work so quietly and 
cheerfully, and yet in such a business-like way, that it 
was a constant pleasure to come into contact with 
them. Dressed in black serge or alpaca, they affected 
no flirting airs, and directed or obeyed promptly and 
quietly. And yet their womanhood constantly ap- 
peared in their manner and in their tboughtfulness 
for the comfort of those who were in their care. 
They always had a pleasant word or a smile in an- 
swer to a passing remark, were always ready to 
answer any question or give any information, and 
were pleased at any acknowledgment of satisfaction. 
Naturally it was so ; for they were women ; and they 
were chosen, it seemed to me, for their pleasant ways 
as well as for their efficiency. From not one of them, 



228 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

from one end of England to the other, in great cities 
or in quiet country towns and villages, did I receive 
one surly word or look, or anything but the kindest 
and promptest attention. I can say the same of the 
shop-women, who waited upon customers not as if 
they were consciously condescending in the perform- 
ing of such duties, but cheerfully and pleasantly, and 
with a show of interest that a purchaser should be 
satisfied. Their dress was almost invariably the same, 
— black, unornamented serge or alpaca, which, by the 
way, is the commonest street dress of all women of 
their condition. In the telegraph offices the clerks are 
generally women ; and, indeed, women seem to do 
everything except plow, drive omnibuses and rail- 
way engines, and be soldiers and policemen. They 
keep turnpikes, where turnpikes still exist ; and in 
Sussex I saw a woman's name with her husband's 
upon the pike-house. Indeed, it seemed to me that 
in all public affairs, from politics down to turnpike 
keeping, women were very much more engaged and 
before the world in England than in " America," al- 
though I saw no jury-women or she-sergeants. 

As to the manners of Englishwomen, they are, like 
the manners of other women, good, bad, and indiffer- 
ent. And chiefly they are indifferent, being in this 
particular also like the manners common to the Teu- 
tonic races ; which races, some of my readers may 
like to be reminded, are the Deutsch (which we call 
German), the Hollanders, the Anglo-Saxon (or, bet- 
ter, the English), and the Scandinavians (Swedes, 
Norsemen, Danes, and Icelanders). The average 
manners of these people, even of the women among 
them, are on the whole truly indifferent. They ai'e 
not coarse, but as surely they are not polished. Man- 



ENGLISH WOMEN. 229 

ner, however, is a very different thing from manners ; 
and in manner Englishwomen, from the highest class 
to the lowest, are all more or less charming, — strong- 
minded women and lodging-house keepers being of 
course excepted. This charm, like all traits and ef- 
fects of manner, is not easy to describe ; but it left 
upon me at all times and among all classes an im- 
pression of its being the outcoming of a conscious- 
ness of womanhood combined with a feeling of mod- 
est but very firm self-respect. The most intelligent 
Englishwoman, even in her most exalted moments, 
never seems to resolve herself into a bare intelli- 
gence. Her mind is always clad in woman's flesh ; 
and her body thinks. Thus conscious of her own 
womanhood, she keeps you conscious of it by a sub- 
tle influence of sex, — the only subtlety of which 
she is usually capable, — and not merely by the facts 
tliat her hair is long, her face beardless, and her body 
covered with voluminous and marvelous apparel, — 
in a word, not merely by outer show. 

All this is but the outward sign ; and it might ex- 
ist — as it so often does, I shall not say where — in 
females, who ai'e wholly*without that grace, not of 
movement or of speech, or even of thought, but of 
moral condition, which is to man the chiefest charm in 
woman. How often have I sat by one of those women 
talking — no, talked at (for it reduces me to silence) 
— in such a splendid and overwhelming manner, and 
with such a superior consciousness of intellectuality, 
that I could not but think that, except for the silk 
and the lace, and the lack of mustaches, and the 
evident expectation of a compliment, I might as well 
have been talking with a man, and that I longed for 
the companionship of some pretty, well bred igno- 



230 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

ramus, whose head was full only of common sense, and 
whose soul as well as whose body was of the female 
sex. 

England is not without women of the former kind, 
I suppose, but they are so rare that I met with none ; 
while all the women that I did meet had the soft, 
sweet charm given by the contented consciousness 
of their womanhood. Womanhood looks out from 
an Englishwoman's eyes ; it speaks in every inflec- 
tion of her voice. No matter how clever she may 
be; how well informed, she never utters mind pure 
and simple ; she never lays a bare statement of 
thought or of fact before you. She is too modest. 
A piece of her mind she does, indeed, sometimes 
give you. But then, be sure, she is, of all times, 
the most thoroughly woman-like and absolved from 
intellectuality ; being thus, however, in her excite- 
ment not peculiar among her sex. At all other times 
she leaves an impression of gentleness and a lack of 
intellectual robustness ; and, at least if you are a 
man, she, without any seeming intention of so doing, 
keeps you constantly in mind that she is trusting to 
you — to your strength, jlRur ability, your position 
— to insure that she shall be treated with respect 
and tenderness, and cared for; and that therefore 
she owes you deference, and that it becomes her 
to be not only as charming, but as serviceable as 
possible. Even in the hardest women there is at least 
a remnant of this. An Englishwoman shall be a 
sort of she-bagman, a traveler for manufacturers, and 
in the habit of riding second or even third class 
alone, from one end of England to the other (and 
I talked with such women), and she shall yet show 
you this gentle, womanly consciousness. A woman's 



ENGLISH WOMEN. 231 

eye there never looks straight and steady into yours, 
saying, " I am quite able to take care of my own 
person and interests and reputation. Don't trouble 
yourself about me in those respects. Meantime, sir, 
I am taking your measure." There is always a mute 
appeal from her womanhood to your manhood. This 
charm belongs to the Englishwoman of all ranks, 
and beautifies everything that she does, even if she 
does it awkwardly, which is not always. She shows 
it if she is a great lady and welcomes you, or if she 
is a house-maid and serves you. Not absolutely every 
EngHshwoman is thus, of course ; for there are hard 
and proud and cruel and debased women in Eng- 
land, as there are elsewhere. But, apart from these 
exceptions, this is the manner of Englishwomen ; and 
in so far as a man may judge, this manner, or the 
counterpart of it, does not forsake them when they 
are among themselves. 

This gentle charm of the Englishwoman's manner 
is greatly helped and heightened by her voice and her 
vray of speaking. In these she is not only without 
an equal, but beyond comparison with the women of 
any other people, except tlie few of her own blood 
and tongue in this country, who have like voices and 
the same utterance. The voices and the speech of 
Englishwomen of all classes are, with few exceptions, 
pleasant to the ear, — soft and clear ; their words are 
well articulated, but not precisely pronounced. They 
speak without much emphasis, yet not monotonously, 
but with gentle modulation. Their speech is there- 
fore very easily understood, — much more so than 
that of persons who speak louder and with stronger 
emphasis. You rarely or never are obliged to ask 
an Englishwoman to repeat what she has said be- 



232 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

cause you have failed to catch her words. This soft, 
yet crisp and clear and easily flowing speech is, as I 
have said, common to the whole sex there. 

I remember that in one of my prowlings about 
London I found myself in a little, dingy court that 
opened off Thames Street, — a low water-side street 
that runs under London Bridge. It was Sunday 
morning, and I had come down from Charing Cross 
to attend service at St. Paul's, and had half an hour 
to spare. The street was almost deserted, and so 
quiet that my footsteps echoed from the walls of the 
dull and smoke-browned houses. Li this court I 
found two women talking. One was Sairey Gamp. 
I am sure it was Sairey. The leer upon her heavy 
face could not be mistaken, and she had grown even 
a little stouter than when I was so happy as to make 
her acquaintance years ago. The other was probably 
Betsey Prig ; she was a mere wisp of a woman ; or, 
indeed, she may have been Mrs. Harris herself, — 
her shadow-like figure being the next thing in woman 
form to nonentity. As I passed these two humble 
j^eople, I was struck by the tone and manner of their 
speech as they talked earnestly together. Their words 
and their pronunciation were vulgar enough ; but, 
as a whole, the speech of both was rich and musical. 
The whole of that otherwise silent court was filled 
with the soft murmur of their voices. I had no 
business there, but I pretended to have, and went 
from dingy door to dingy door, lingering and loiter- 
ing all round the court, that I might listen. They 
did not stare at me any more than I did at them, 
— plainly, they would not have thought of such rude- 
ness, — but the}^ went on with their talk, speaking 
their lan^uaere and mine with tones and inflections 



ENGLISH WOMEN. " 233 

that I never heard from two women of like posi- 
tion in " America." 

I was reminded of this afterwards when one 
morning, at a country house, I lingered chatting 
with my hostess at the breakfast table after all the 
rest of the family had risen. She touched a bell, 
and a maid, an upper servant, answered the sum- 
mons. No servants, by the way, wait at breakfast 
there, even in great houses. After you are once 
started, and the tea is made, you are left alone, to 
wait Tipon yourselves, — a fashion full of comfort, 
making breakfast the most sociable meal of the day. 
When the maid appeared her misti-ess spoke at once, 
and she stopped at the door and replied ; and there 
was a little dialogue about some household matter. 
The young woman's answers were little more than, 
"Yes, my lady," and, "No, my lady," but I was 
charmed by them, — more so than I have ever been 
by a lecture or a recitation from the lips of one of 
the sex. She spoke in a subdued tone ; but every 
syllable was distinct, although she was at the further 
end of a large dining-room. Her mistress' voice was 
no less clear and sweet and charming, and as they 
talked, in their low, even tones, with perfect ease 
and understanding at this distance, the whole of the 
great room resounded sweetly with this spoken music. 
When English is spoken in this way by a woman of 
superior breeding and intelligence there is of course 
an added charm, and it is then the most delightful 
speech that I ever heard, or can imagine. Compared 
with it, German becomes harsh and ridiculous, French 
mean and snappish, Spanish too weak and open- 
mouthed, and even Italian, noble and sweet as it is, 
seems to lack a certain firmness and crispness, and to 



234 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

be without a homely charm which it may not lack 
to those whose mother tongue is bastard Latin. 

One reason of this beauty of the speech of English- 
women is doubtless in the voice itself. An English- 
woman's voice is soft, but it is not weak. It is nota- 
bly firm, clear, and vibrating. It is neither guttural 
nor nasal. While it soothes the ear, it compels atten- 
tion. Like the tone of a fine old Cremona violin, its 
softest vibrations make themselves heard and under- 
stood, when mere noise makes only confusion. Such 
voices are not entirely lacking among women in "Amer- 
ica ; " but, alas, how few of the fortunate possessors 
of such voices here use them worthily ! For the other 
element of the beauty of the Englishwoman's speech 
is in her utterance. We all remember poor Lear's 
words about a voice soft, gentle, and low, being an 
excellent thing in woman. Shakespeare knew the 
truth in this, as in so many other things. One of 
the very few points on which we may be sure of his 
personal preferences is that he disliked high voices 
and sharp speech in women. Singular man ! The 
Englishwoman's voice is strong as well as sweet, but 
her speech is low. She rarely raises her voice. I do 
not remember having ever heard an Englishwoman 
try to compel attention in that way ; but I have heard 
French and Spanish and Italian women, ladies of 
unquestionable position and breeding, almost scream, 
and that, too, in " society." Nor does the English- 
woman use much emphasis. Her manner of speech 
is calm, although without any suggestion of dignity, 
and her inflections, which rise often, although they 
are full of meaning, are gentle. I remarked this 
difference in her sjjeech of itself, but much more 
when I heard again the speech of some " American " 



ENGLISH WOMEN. 235 

ladies whom I accidentally met in England. I had 
not been in their company five minutes when I was 
pierced through from ear to ear. They seemed to 
me to be talking in italics, to be emphasizing every 
word, as if they would thrust it into my ears, whether 
I would or not. I am sure that to their too emphatic 
utterance is due, in a very great* measure, the infe- 
rior charm of the speech of most American women, 
when compared with that of their kinswomen who 
have remained in the " old home." If they would 
be a little more gentle, a little less self-asserting, a 
little less determined, and a little more persuasive in 
their utterance as well as in their manner, who could 
doubt that, with all their other advantages, they need 
fear no rivalry in womanly charm, even with the truly 
feminine, sensible, gentle -mannered, sweet -voiced 
women of England ! 

To make an end of this embarrassing discussion, it 
may be said, but not confidently, that on the whole 
women are more beautiful in " America," but more 
lovable in England ; that in " America " they are 
better dressed, but in England better housekeepers 
and companions. There are as lovable women here 
as there, and as beautiful women there as here ; but 
the prepondei'ance of numbers is probably as it is 
above set forth. Perhaps erelong time will bless 
the men of both countries by making the balance per- 
fect. 



CHAPTER XI. 

EMJLISH MANNERS. 

When I took passage for Liverpool I naturally 
inquired what kind of man lie was in whose charge 
and under whose command I was to be for some ten 
days upon the ocean. I was told that lie was an ex- 
cellent seaman and a good ship-master, but that he 
was unsociable and surly ; in fact positively disagree- 
able ; had English manners, and was in brief " a per- 
fect John Bull." I took all this with some grains of 
allowance, and was content to be in the hands of a 
good seaman and commander. For as to reserve of 
manner on the part of a man who has upon his mind 
the responsibility for a great steamship and her cargo, 
and a thousand or twelve hundred souls, upon the 
storm-vexed, fog-shrouded Atlantic, I could not only 
make allowance for it, but respect it ; having some 
knowledge, although at second hand, of the way in 
which " the captain " is often pestered by the he and 
she gadflies among his passengers. And therefore 
on the voyage, although the sea was calm and the 
skies were bright, and we went smoothly and swiftly 
on under steam and sails, I did not for several days 
speak to any officer of the vessel, except the purser 
and the surgeon. When I passed the captain I 
merely bowed silently in acknowledgment of his po- 
sition, and of mine as his subordinate and dependent. 
I should have been better pleased if he had made 



ENGLISH MANNERS. 237 

some acknowledgment, however slight, of my salute, 
of wliicli lie took not the least notice. But even this 
neglect, although I had never met with it before even 
in the commander of a man-of-war, I should have 
passed by without setting it down against him, had 
it not been that I observed that he made himself def- 
erentially agreeable to a passenger who was connected 
in some way with the British embassy, and who 
seemed to have no higher claim to exceptional at- 
tention. Other passengers complained outright of 
the surly indifference of his manner even to ladies ; 
and one of the latter, a very gracious and agreeable 
woman, of such social position that she could have 
safely snubbed the whole British embassy, and of 
such spirit that upon good occasion she would have 
done so, told me that he had replied to a civil and 
simple question of hers so rudely that she did not 
mean to pass over the offense unnoticed. 

One day, as we were just passing, out of the Gulf 
Stream, I saw him standing near me, and stepping 
up to him and raising my hat I said, " I beg pardon 
for interrupting you, captain [he was doing nothing], 
but will you be kind enough to tell me how wide the 
Gulf Stream is where we cross it ? " He replied 
very curtly and gruffly, " Indeed, I don't know. It 's 
a matter I've never thought about, — don't know 
anything at all about it." The manner was more 
than the words. It was not insulting ; I could not 
complain of it ; but it was insolent, and insolent in 
a way which showed that the speaker was an ill-con- 
ditioned person who did not know how to behave 
himself. And if the reply was true, it was amazing. 
For the Gulf Stream is a very important fact in navi- 
gation ; and here was an accomplished seaman who for 



238 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN, 

years had been crossing it twenty times and more in 
a year, and yet he had, as he said, not even thought 
how many miles of it he had to pass over. If what 
he said was true, it was an astonishing exposition of 
Philistinism, or something worse. For as to the in- 
formation for wliich I asked, I soon got at that easily 
by an examination of a chart and a brief and simple 
calculation. The reply was, however, probably a 
simple exposition of personal character. But the 
feeling aroused among the passengers by our com- 
mander's behavior (although most of them were his 
countrymen) was such that there was some talk of 
sending to the owners a formal complaint against it ; 
and although this project was abandoned, the lady 
whom I have mentioned did not forget her feminine 
mischief. 

She got up one of those little entertainments by 
which the tedium of a voyage is not unfrequently 
relieved, making herself hostess, and providing a lit- 
tle supper. To this she invited every passenger with 
whom she or any one of her party had exchanged a 
word, and by special note every officer of the ship, 
except the captain, who was pointedly omitted. The 
slight was extreme, and I am not prepared to say 
that it was quite defensible ; for, whatever his man- 
ners, he was the commanding officer of the vessel ; 
but it was generally regarded as fully justified by 
his conduct, and as permissible on the part of a 
woman. His captainship, su.rly sea-dog as he was, 
felt the cut very deeply, and was furious ; and in the 
midst of our little festival, at which all the officers 
not on duty were present, he sent in orders for them 
to appear on deck. Of course they were obliged to 
go ; but none the less the lady had accomplished her 
purpose. 



ENGLISH MANNERS. 239 

Some years before my voyage to England, I liad 
an experience of this sort of EngiisL. manners, and 
as it was in every way very characteristic, the story 
of it is not here inappropriate, and may be instruct- 
ive. I knew and was on the pleasantest terms with 
an English gentleman of a very different sort from 

Captain , a man whom I had respected, liked, 

and even admired. He was a man of intelligence, 
of wide information, and of remarkably good-breed- 
ing, — a man distinguished in person and in manner. 
When he applied to me to perform a certain respon- 
sible duty for him during his absence, I was pleased 
at such a mark of his confidence, and I accepted his 
proposal. While he was away a gentleman connected 
with him in business thought that he bad reason to 
be dissatisfied with some of my arrangements, and 
on my declining to admit any interference with my 
discharge of the duties which I had undertaken, he 
took the responsibility of breaking the agreement, to 
which, for peace' sake, I assented, on the understand- 
ing tbat my rights in the matter were to be held in 
abeyance until the return of my friend from England. 
When he did return we met in the pleasantest way ; 
and after waiting until he was well settled again, I 
brought the matter to his attention briefly by letter, 
and asked his decision. To my surprise, and I may 
almost say to my grief, I received a very curt reply, 
in which he said that he did not propose to trouble 
himself at all about the past. The purpose of his 
response was so plain, and its utter lack of consider- 
ation was so manifest and so insuiierable, that in sor- 
row, and without a disrespectful word, I wrote to him 
that our acquaintance must cease immediately. 

I determined, of course, that the matter should not 



240 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

drop there ; but on looking for the letters in which 
his proposals were made and the terms of our agree- 
ment settled, I could not find them. They were care- 
fully preserved, but had been mislaid, and many 
months passed before they were discovered. During 
this time his partner became convinced that, however 
correct his judgment might have been, I was right in 
the position which I had taken ; and in a courteous 
note he inclosed me a check for his half of what was 
due to me under the agreement. This check I re- 
turned to him, telling him, with thanks, that the 
question on ray part was not one of money. 

When I found the letters, I wrote to my former 
friend, bringing the matter again to his attention, and 
asking his consideration of it. He took no notice of 
my letter. I then brought a suit against him, which 
he defended. I was very sorry for the whole affair, 
and just before the trial was coming on I went to a 
common acquaintance, and, showing him the whole 
matter, said, " This case ought not to be tried. I 

don't want to pay me a dollar. Go to him from 

me and say so, and see if you can't induce him to be- 
have differently." He agreed with me, and did what 
I asked. But his intercession was in vain ; Sir John 
Bull refused to hear a word about the matter. The 
trial came on ; and after the evidence was all in my 
counsel offered to submit the case to the jury with- 
out argument, but the other side refused. The judge 
charged briefly, and the jury, after a minute's con- 
sultation without leaving their seats, gave a verdict 
in my favor for the full amount claimed, to which 
the judge added the largest peinnissible "allowance." 
And thus ended the only suit in which I, although 
bred to the bar, and the loser of not a little much- 



ENGLISH MANNERS. 241 

needed money, was ever plaintiff. If my former 
friend had treated me with the consideration which 
one man — I shall not say one gentleman — owes to 
another ; if he had merely said to me, even at the 
last moment, " My position in this matter is such 
that I cannot without great inconvenience interfere 
in anything that passed during my absence ; I am 
sorry that it is so," that woidd have been an end of 
the affair. His arrogance and his ignorance of me 
except as a man of letters led him to take a position 
which proved untenable and costly. By many per- 
sons, perhaps b}^ most persons who were not born 
and bred in England, his conduct will be regarded 
as thoroughly English, and as a typical example of 
English manners.^ 

1 A gentleman whose opinion on such a subject would be valued by all 
who knew him — I do not know why I should not mention the name of 
my friend the late Maunsell Field, a man who could learn nothing in court- 
esy from the courts with which he was familiar — told me of an experience 
of British high-class manners which he pronounced characteristic. He was 
at a small town in the south of France or north of Spain, — Pau, perhaps, 
— in company with a friend, and they had a bedroom and a sitting-room 
together. The latter was the only apartment of the kind in the little inn, 
except the general parlor, which was made unpleasant by some rude 

army officers. The dowager Duchess of (a well-known English title) 

arrived with her family, including girls and the j'oung duke. They 
needed a sitting-room for their comfort; and under the circumstances' the 
two Yankees sent their compliments to her Grace, with the offer to give up 
their sitting-room to her; regi-etting only that they should be obliged to 
pass through it once in the evening on the way to their bedroom. It was 
accepted. When the gentlemen passed through their room, the lady who 
by their favor was occupying it looked up at them ; they bowed, and ex- 
pressed themselves sorry to disturb her. She in return only stared at 
them in silence, as the young ladies and the boy duke also did; and that 
was all. This was repeated three evenings; and then, finding it intolera- 
ble, the self-sacrificing gentlemen shortened their visit, and left the inn 
without a word of thanks from her Grace. I never met with such con- 
duct on the part of decent English folk, however high their rank, and 
never but once anything like it, and that not in England. Another friend, 
not inferior in social tact or knowledge of the world, told me that when he 

was at Gibraltar the Duchess of (another very noted title) used to 

16 



242 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

To a certain extent it was typical of English man- 
ners, but only of one narrow strongly marked phase 
of them ; and although I had had other opportuni- 
ties of observing similar conduct on the part of Eng- 
lishmen, in some of which I was directly interested, 
but in others of which I was not, I had refused to 
accept these as evidence against a whole people, and 
a people in whom, apart from all considerations of 
kindred, which to nie were great and abiding, I felt 
an interest which I had felt in no other. It will be 
seen, however, that when I stepped from the deck of 
my steamer I did so with sufficient reason for some 
prejudice against the manners of my British kinsmen. 

I found, however, good reason to be glad that my 
experience of a few individuals had not led me into 
a foregone conclusion against a people. Those who 
have gone with me thus far will not be surprised 
at my saying that I found the manners of English 
folk in most respects pleasing and admirable. And 
by manners I mean not merely the attitude and the 
action and the speech which appear upon the surface 
of social intercourse, but the motive feeling which 
underlies this surface, and which influences the act- 
ual conduct, as well as the bearing of man toward 
man. Moreover, the distinction between manners 
and manner must be constantly kept in mind. 

It is a trite remark that the English manner lacks 
both warmth and grace. Indeed, as a people, the 
English have no manner. I would not say, as Mal- 
volio says of Viola in her page's dress, that their 
manner is " a very ill manner." There is simply the 

come out in the gallery that surrounded the court of the old inn, and rate 
her servants there like a termagant; and that unless she was in full dress 
she was slatternly and — I refrain from using a word which would assert 
that an English duchess could be other than irreproachable in person. 



ENGLISH MANNEKS. 243 

absence of pleasing outward demonstration, a reserve 
so absolute and yet so unconscious (unconscious, per- 
haps, tlirough long habit and continued practice) 
that it is very like indifference. But even to this 
judgment there must be made many exceptions, — 
exceptions so numerous that sometimes it seems as 
if, like the exceptions to the conjugation of Frencli 
verbs, they almost invalidate the rule. Certainly, I 
have never seen, nor could I desire to see, more show 
of heartiness and warmth than I have met in Eng- 
lishmen. And even as to polish of manner I could 
hardly deny that the finest examples of it that I have 
met with were afforded by Englishmen, although 
these were few in number. It would seem as if the 
hard, tough material had, like some agates, under its 
natural rough coating the possibilit}^ of a smoothness 
and transparency of surface which shows all the 
beauty of the structure beneath, and which yet will 
turn an edge of hardest steel. Soft-natured things 
take no such polish. On the other hand, it is not 
often that you find that union of simplicity and court- 
esy, that lack of self-assertion and that thoughtfulness 
of others' feelings, which was not uncommon among 
New England folk of the best breeding in the last 
generation (for, alas, we have lost it, rubbed rudely 
down as it has been by the rush of railway trains, 
and war, and the flood of wealth and emigration), 
and which seemed to be the outward manifestation 
of a gentle, kindly, fine-fibred nature.^ But of good 

1 To most of my readers I need hardly say that in m}' parenthetical 
censure I am not one of Horace's praisers of the manners of the days of 
their youth. But all they whose social experience began like mine in 
railway times, and who yet had youthful glimpses of the fading charm of 
old New England manners among those whose sons have since gone West 
or South, will agree with me in my admiring and reverential memories. 



244 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

manners and kindly intentions, accompanied by a 
manifest consciousness of superior position and of its 
duties, it is hard to imagine finer examples than may 
be found among the higher classes in England. 

English people impress you first of all by a sense 
of the genuineness of their actions and of their 
speech. Warm or cold they may be, gracious or un- 
gracious, arrogant or considerate, but you see that 
they are sincere. Englishmen adulterate their goods, 
but not their conduct. If an Englishman makes you 
welcome, you feel at home ; and you know that, 
within reason, and often out of reason, he will look 
after your comfort, — that for your well-being while 
you are under his roof he considers himself responsi- 
ble. Yet he does not thrust himself upon you, and 
3'ou may do almost what you choose, and go almost 
whither you will. If he meets you and gives you 
two fingers, it means only two fingers ; if his whole 
hand grasps yours, you have his hand, and you have 
it most warmly at your parting. His speech is 
like his action. His social word is his social bond ; 
you may trust him for all that it promises, and com- 
monly for more. If you do not understand him well, 
you may suppose at first that he is indifferent and 
careless, until something is done for you, or sug- 
gested to you, that shows you that his friend and his 
friend's welfare has been upon his mind. 

In English society there are indeed people, and 
not a few of them, to whom social intercourse is a 
matter of calculation, a means to an end. But their 
like is to be found in all lands ; in Eiji, I believe; and 
of them I do not speak. Such professors of society 
are fewer in England than elsewhere ; and indeed it 
is better that they should be fewer ; for they do this 



ENGLISH MANNERS. 245 

business rather awkwardl3^ Social finesse is not the 
forte of the English people, although it is the foible 
of some Englishwomen. But their efforts in that 
way are stiff and heavy, and remind one of those of 
the German who practiced jumping over chairs that 
he might learn to be lively. One does sometimes 
wish that there was a little less rigidity in the social 
joints of England ; but after all, in the long run sup- 
pleness is a poor substitute for solid strength. In 
the society of Englishmen you at least feel safe. 

It is remarkable, in connection with this view of 
our subject, that, although the English manner in 
real life is quiet and undemonstrative almost to affec- 
tation, English acting is rude and extravagant ; and 
that, on the other hand, while the French manner 
in daily intercourse is nervous and demonstrative, 
French acting is distinguished by delicacy, calm, and 
reserve. Each nation seems to seek upon the stage 
the complement of its daily acted life, as people whose 
existence is one of commonplace drudgery and of 
pinching poverty like to read descriptions of roman- 
tic adventure and of the splendor and magnificence 
attainable by the lavish use of fabulous wealth. 

The manner of Englishmen to women is a happy 
mean between indifference and adulation, between 
hard mastery and abject submission. There is nei- 
ther the effusiveness of the Frenchman nor the sad 
and voiceless slavery of the " American ; " little bow- 
ing and flourishing, and not much flattery. But 
with a silent assertion of masculine mastery, and no 
readiness to yield everything to a woman's caprice 
or convenience merely because she is a woman, there 
is an exhaustless fund of tenderness and a never- 
dying flame of chivalry among these wife-beating 



246 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

men. The Englishman's bearing towards women is 
the Yankee's, wholesomely corrected by a tempering 
of common sense and not unreasonable selfishness. 
Frances Power Cobbe tells in the " Contemporary 
Review " a characteristic story illustrative of this 
point : how once she asked an elderly French gen- 
tleman, a M. de , with a ribbon in his button- 
hole, to give some attention to a charming young lad}^ 
who was going on the same train with him from Lon- 
don to Paris, and how he was " too happy to place 
himself at her service," and how he made himself 
very agreeable on the route ; but how when, on their 
arrival at Boulogne, there was serious difficulty about 

the lady's luggage, M. de , rather than lose a 

train to Paris, expressed himself as being au deses- 
poh'^ and was whirled off, leaving his young charge 
to get out of her trouble as best she could. " The' 
results," Miss Cobbe goes on to say, "might have 
been annoying had not a homely English stranger 
stepped in and proffered his aid ; and, having recov- 
ered the missing property, simply lifted his hat and 
escaped from the lady's expressions of gratitude. In 
this little anecdote, I think, lies a compendium of the 
experience of hundreds of ladies on their travels. The 
genuine and self-sacrificing kindness of English and 
American gentlemen toward women affords almost 
a ludicrous contrast to the florid politeness, com- 
patible with every degree of selfishness, usually ex- 
hibited by men of other European nations." 

The god of English social life next in dignity to 
mammon is propriety. Now propriety rightly wor- 
shiped is a very good god ; his rites are sweetness, 
order, decency ; and in their practice they involve 
that consideration for others which is the hiechest 



ENGLISH MANNERS. 247 

form of morality, and even of piety. But your aver- 
age Briton makes propriety a Molocli, before whom 
he prostrates himself, and before whom he often 
makes his very children sacrifice some of the beauty 
of their youthful lives. The highest social aim, the 
greatest social law, to this sort of Englishman is to 
do the correct thing. Having attained this, he feels 
that he has absolved himself of every social duty, 
and clothed his soul in panoply of proof. Whether 
the correct thing be really the right thing he does 
not know, does not seek to know. That so it has 
been and tliat so it is are for him both logic aiid re- 
ligion. In his mouth the greatest reproach is " un- 
precedented ; " the mere statement of the fact that 
an act has not been done before, that a word has not 
been spoken before, being to him its condemnation. 
Wherefore he lives his life surrounded by dead, shriv- 
eled forms, eyeless, brainless, bloodless, whose only 
voice is from the grave of a dead past. If he breaks 
away from this oppression, he is likely to run into 
extremes which violate all decency, all decorum, all 
propriet3^ Freed from his accustomed restraint, he 
is apt to add a grossness to vice which makes it more 
hideous, if not more harmful. 

This general consideration of our subject, however, 
is likely to be of less interest and perhaps of less real 
instructiveness than some report of particular exter- 
nal manners among Englishmen. In this respect 
I was impressed at once, even before I had left the 
steamer, with the good behavior of the English peo- 
ple, from the lowest to the highest. I found them 
to be kindly, respectful, considerate, showing, with 
rare exceptions, that union of deference to others and 
self-respect which I have spoken of before. The 



248 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

custom-house officers, with, three of whom I was 
brought mto contact before I went on shore, seemed 
to me to have in perfection the manners fit for their 
position. They were quiet, civil, pleasant, consider- 
ate, and firm. They seemed to wish to do their duty 
as agreeably as possible, and they did not even give 
me a chance to offer a " tip." Such was their man- 
ner in general ; but having reason to suspect one pas- 
senger, they searched one of his trunks thoroughly, 
and then, finding that he had several hundreds more 
of cigars than they thought a private gentleman 
should carry, they "went through him" without 
pity, yet with politeness. Just so pleasant and so 
worthy of respect I found the London policemen, 
whose quiet, good-natured ways, unpretending civil- 
ity, and unofficious readiness brought me to look upon 
them as friends. Wherever and whenever I saw them 
in my wanderings over the great city, it was with 
pleasure and with personal interest. Their honest, 
cheery English faces and their English speech were 
the more grateful to me because of their unlikeness 
to Misther John Kelly's constituents, who, excepting 
those big, good-natured dandies, the Broadway squad, 
fill the ranks of the New York force. 

I had been in England more than a month, going 
about everywhere in city and in country alone, and 
doing -this, it should be remembered, as an English- 
man, before I had one uncivil or even one unpleasant 
word spoken to me; and when the word came it was 
from a 'bus conductor, and I was really in fault. 
Wishing to go to Hyde Park near Prince's Gate, I 
hailed a 'bus that was driving rapidly through Regent 
Street with "Hyde Park" upon its panels. Just as 
I was mounting to the top it occurred to me to ask 



ENGLISH MANNERS. 249 

the conductor if he passed Prince's Gate. " No, I 
don't," he replied, somewhat snappishly, " and a gen- 
tleman like you hought to know there 's two sides to 
' Yd e Park, an' that they 're a mile apart." I did 
know that as well as he did, and therefore asked my 
question. What I liad not learned was how to dis- 
tinguish the 'buses that ran on one side from those 
that ran on the other. I remembered that I had 
stopped him for nothing in full career, and when he 
was perhaps behind time, and I thought his fretful- 
ness Tery excusable. Now this piece of mild inci- 
vility was not only my first but my only experience 
of the kind in England, where I found among those 
whose business it was to serve me not only general 
civility and a deferential demeanoi', but a cheerful- 
ness of manner and a pleasant alacrity to which an 
" American " is unaccustomed. 

Not in omnibuses nor in any other public vehicles 
are you subjected to the incivility of being summoned 
to pay your fare as soon as you enter. There is no 
thumping upon windows or jangling of bells to call 
your attention to this duty. You pay just before you 
go out ; or after a reasonable time a conductor comes 
and civilly takes your money. Nor does he then turn 
a crank and clang a great gong, or touch a spring and 
kling a little one, to announce to the world that you 
have paid and that he has received your twopence or 
threepence. The standing passenger rubbing against 
your knees and treading upon your toes is not the 
only familiar annoyance from which you will find 
yourself freed. Do not the companies lose some fares 
by this simple method of pi'oceclure? Perhaps they 
do. But the saving of money to common carriers is 
not regarded as the one great object to be attained. 



260 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

The convenience and comfort of the passenger is the 
first consideration, and for that he pays. But to put 
him to inconvenience, or to subject him to unpleas- 
antness, that he may thereby be made use of to cor- 
rect the consequences of the possible dishonesty of 
the company's servants, after the New York fashion, 
is an imposition unthought of. Englishmen would 
not submit to it for a day. 

It is pleasant, too, to be able to make a purchase 
at a shop and to pay for it on the spot to the person 
who sells it to you, and to go away, if you choose to 
do so, immediately. The System of checks by which, 
if you take a glass of soda-water or buy a paper of 
pins, you receive an order to pay five cents at some 
desk more or less remote, is unknown in England. 
So is the waiting for some trifle until a salesman 
makes three entries, and a cash boy makes as many, 
and a cashier as many, and your tiny parcel is wrapped 
up at the proper counter and " entered " there and 
numbered and what not, and then brought solemnly 
to you, or packed away to be sent to you at a certain 
"• delivery." At the very eating-houses you pay the 
waiter who serves you, and he, if necessary, makes 
change for you out of his own pocket. For his gen- 
eral civility I will ansv\^er freely, -but for his cleanli- 
ness I can say little. He is even in the morning dis- 
covered in a dress-coat and an untidy, dingy white 
tie, which makes him look as if he had been up all 
night. In his hand he carries a napkin, which even 
early in the day is so limp and smutched and unctu- 
ous that you dread lest he should wipe your plate or 
your knife and fork with it. He is very attentive, 
however, and at breakfast bustles about to find you 
a newspaper before he takes yovir order. And in so 



ENGLISH MANNERS. 251 

trifling a matter as a newspaper your minutest com- 
fort is looked after. I remarked that in the coffee- 
rooms of hotels and in good restaurants the newspa- 
pers had a little triangular piece cut diagonally off 
the top of the middle fold. By this the annoying little 
wrinkle which otherwise is apt to form there and to 
prevent the paper from opening and shutting easily 
is avoided. The papers on the news-stands, too, are 
cut open. And all this is done not by a folding-ma- 
chine or a cutting-machine at the newspaper offices, 
but personally by the people who serve you, and who 
do all that they can do to please you. The fashion 
recently adopted here of folding newspapers by ma- 
chinery, when they are printed, in such a way that 
the reader is obliged to unfold and then refold them, 
is an example of a system of life and of manners the 
exact reverse of that v/hich is practiced in England. 
But what matter to what inconvenience the Ameri- 
can newspaper publisher puts the public, if by so 
doing he can save ten cents on a thousand copies ! 
Does not the public in America exist for the benefit- 
of railway companies and other corporations, of ma- 
chine politicians, and of publishers of newspapers ? 
Verily for little else. 

In illustration of the stiffness and reserve of Eng- 
lish manners, I was told by a friend who would be 
likely to know the truth, that the Athengeum Club 
' had actually once undertaken to discipline a member 
who had spoken to another member without an intro- 
duction. But although the Athenaeum is the highest 
and mightiest of all the literary clubs of London, and 
is so exclusive that strangers are not admitted within 
its doors, this story is probably an exaggeration of 
some triflino- occurrence which has been caricatured 



252 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

as a take-off of the liauglity, " high-dried " niannei's 
of the circle in which centres the loftiest intellectual 
and social culture of London. In fact, introductions 
are at the present day almost disused in the best 
company in England. The fashion has its advan- 
tages, and is not without its comforts. It protects 
you against the annoyance of being dragged up and 
thrust upon the attention of persons who may not be 
so much in the mood to make your acquaintance as 
they might be at some other time ; and it is a blessed 
change from experiences in this respect which are 
not easily to be escaped in the United States except 
at the cost of unpopularity. But it is carried, it 
seemed to me, to an inconvenient and almost absurd 
extreme. People who are invited to meet at small 
parties and at country houses are left to find each 
other out and make themselves known one to another 
as best they may. The result is sometimes a degree 
of aw^kwardness which perhajDS is not quite out of 
keeping with certain phases of English society. But 
I did not find that it interposed any real obstacles to 
the pleasantest social intercourse ; and after all it is 
better than the other extreme of promiscuous intro- 
duction, will you, nill you. And it should be re- 
membered that a person on entering a drawing-room 
in England is always formally announced, and is 
therefore known to all within hearing. 

One trait of English manners was first brought to 
my attention at the Birmingham musical festival. 
As we went out after the morning performance, we 
found at each door a nicely-dressed and pleasant- 
looking young woman holding in her hand a plate 
such as those in which collections of money are taken 
up in churches. This was to receive gifts for some 



ENGLISH MANNERS. 253 

favorite charitable institution of the town, and as we 
passed the girls they rattled the money in their plates 
to attract attention. It was a new way to me of ask- 
ing and receiving alms ; but what I chiefly remarked 
was that these young ladies for every addition made 
to the money in their plates said pointedly, " Thank 
you." Afterwai-ds in London, on a certain saint's 
day, I found girls ensconced in chairs, and when it 
rained with umbrellas spread, in very public places, 
having plates before them to receive the alms of way- 
farers for certain public charities ; and these also, I 
observed, for every gift said, " Thank you." In Eng- 
land there is always some one to say personally 
" Thank you " for a benefit conferred ; and this is 
the more easily and constantly done because there is 
in general a more direct personal contact than there 
is among us between all persons concerned in chari- 
table works, whether as principals or as intermedia- 
ries. Not only, however, in return for alms, but for 
favor shown in any way, in making a purchase, or 
even in giving an order, this acknowledgment is 
made. It seemed to me that " Thank you " must be 
heard a thousand times a day in England for once 
that it is heard in America. I was thanked for my 
very cab-toll every time I crossed Waterloo Bridge. 

Notwithstanding this trait of civility and consider- 
ateness in English manners, and notwithstanding the 
genuineness and, beneath its artificial surface, the 
heartiness of the English character, it has without 
doubt its repellent side. Englishmen themselves 
will hardly deny that too many of them are arro- 
gant, insolent, and overbearing. And yet, as I write 
this, I am almost ashamed to do so, remembering 
what I never can forget, and should grieve and shame 



254 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

to forget, the kindness, the gentleness, the sweetness 
of nature, the ahiiost tender thoiightfuhiess for others, 
that I have seen in so many Englishmen, not only in 
England, but here, before I ever met them on their na- 
tive soil. It has been my good fortune to render some 
of them some very trifling services ; and these were 
not only accepted in a way that enhanced greatly the 
pleasure of rendering them, but were ever afterward 
remembered and acknowledged in a way so frank and 
simple and charming that I was both delighted and 
ashamed at such a recognition. I therefore do protest 
with all my heart against Mr. Henry James's Duke of 
Green Erin as a type of his race, or (although I have 
known no dukes) as a fair representative of his rank. 
And yet, without doubt, he is a very possible English- 
man, and a possible duke. His insolence does not 
pertain to his rank ; it may be found in all ranks ; but 
of course a duke who is by nature insolent may, and 
will, insult with greater freedom and impunity than 
is possible to a person of inferior position. Indeed, 
tliis trait of English manners manifests itself most 
readily and strongly in persons of rank and persons 
in authority. That it should do so is only to be ex- 
pected. Such persons have more temptations than 
others have, as well as better opportunities, for the 
exhibition of an overbearing nature. This disregard 
of others does by no means always accompany a 
coarse and brutal organization. My captain was a 
coarse man ; but ni}^ English friend who compelled 
me to bring him to book was one of the most refined 
and courteous of gentlemen. He merel}'' took advan- 
tage of his position to rid himself of some trouble by 
setting quietly aside a man of whom he in fact knew 
very little. Perhaps this is not really an English 



ENGLISH MANNERS. .255 

trait. Not improbably there are just such men in 
France, in Germany, or in Japan. From what we 
know of Prince Bismarck, I am inclined to think 
that under like circumstances he would behave much 
in the same way. Mr. Trollope has admirably illus- 
trated this unpleasant side of English character in 
his Duke of Omnium and his Marquis of Brother- 
ton. It is not that these men were bad, but that 
they were deliberately insolent in their manner, so 
that in the case of the marquis we are all inclined 
to cheer when Dean Lovelace flings him into the fire- 
place.^ 

The influence of aristocracy and of the constant 
pressure upward of the inferior ranks is the cause of 
much of the forbidding manner of English gentle- 
men. They show this manner more among them- 
selves than they do to others. The Marquis of 
Brotherton, because he was marquis and the head 
of his family, was insolent to his younger brother. 
And for this same reason Englishmen are suspicious 
of each other when they are not in the same rank 
of life. The meeting of two Englishmen who are 
strangers, knowing little or nothing of each other, 
and who have occasion to make acquaintance, — the 
doubt, the coldness, the holding out of hesitating 
hands, — is not a cheering sight. But if they find 
each other " all right," they will in a few days be 
mutually using their surnames without the Mr., or 

1 1 mean not only the first Duke of Omnium to whom we are introduced, 
but the second, whom Mr. Trollope presents as an admirable person. But 
" Planty Pol's " behavior to Frank Tredegar when he first proposes for 
Lady Mary is very unbecoming a gentleman ; and even to the doubtful 

Major (bidden to Gatherum Castle by the duchess, and asking of him 

nothing more than better men and men of equal rank had been asked be- 
fwe) his conduct is insufferably insolent. It awakens a desire to snub such 
a man to the quick, while treating him with (he most deferential politeness 



256 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

their titles without the "• handle," and their inter- 
course will be much more hearty and informal than 
if they were " Americans " under the same circum- 
stances. Their shyness of each other when they are 
strangers is most conspicuous in London, where there 
are so many people with money and fine clothes and 
passable manners that " one knows, nothing about." 
Locality is no protection. Belgravia is almost as full 
of snobs as Fifth Avenue. If you doubt it, ask any 
snob who lives in either, and see if he does not admit 
it, deploringly. 

The daily intercourse of families and friends in 
England is hearty and warm, although not effusive. 
They are not ready to give the hand to strangers ; 
but very commonly all of a family, including the 
guests, shake hands on parting for the night ; and on 
meeting in the morning the same greeting is hardly 
less common. It was charming to see two middle- 
aged men, who lived in the same house, meet in the 
breakfast room, and, shaking hands warmly, say, 
" Good-morning, brother." When I saw all this and 
was admitted to be a jDart of it, I wondered where 
the English coldness was of which we hear so much. 

Salutation is so common, even between passing 
strangei-s in the country and while traveling, that I 
was reminded of the manners of New England in my 
early boyhood. Men on leaving a railway car, either 
first-class or second-class, will say "Good-morning" 
or " Good-evening," although they have exchanged 
hardly a word with you on the route, — which, how- 
ever, is rare ; and this habit, which has come down 
from stage-coach times, and has been preserved on 
the railway by the small carriages, is one of the re- 
liefs and pleasures of that unnatural mode of travel. 



ENGLISH MANNERS. 257 

The porter or ^nard who puts you into your carriage 
and hands you your bag, hurried as he is, yet finds 
time to say, " Good-morning, sir." If you are walk- 
ing on a country road, those whom you meet sahite 
you. The country folk, old and young, male and 
female, do so always. In Essex the rustic boys have 
a pretty way of waving their hands in the air by way 
of salutation as you pass. To see a knot of these 
little fellows execute this flourish is very charming. 

One day, as I was walking in Sussex through a 
beautiful lane sunk deep between its green sides, 
where wild flowers grew at the feet of hollies with 
polished leaves, and of other little trees that stood 
so thick that they reduced noonday to twilight, I 
met a woman of the lower class, indeed the lowest. 
She was very handsome, in the prime of life, with 
a grand figure, and dark, bright, melancholy eyes. 
She looked more like a Roman than like an English 
woman ; and I do believe that her noble face and 
swarthy skin had come straight down to her from the 
loins of some Roman soldier, perhaps in Csesar's le- 
gions. She had a child in her arms, and another 
walked by her side, holding her hand. As I passed 
her she paused in her walk, and, courtesying, said, 
" Good-morning, sir ; " and her sweet voice was Eng- 
lish, although her face was not. I returned her salu- 
tation, and passed on, asking myself. Why should this 
woman, who never saw me before, and who is bear- 
ing doubly the burden of motherhood [for it could be 
perceived that the child in her arms would ere many 
months have to yield its place to another], — why 
should she, to whom every man owes deference, pause 
and courtesy to me because I am a " gentleman " ? 
For unmistakably there was deference in her saluta- 

17 



258 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

tion, and a recognition of the differepce of our condi- 
tions. I was ashamed that I had not stopped and 
given her something tliat might have added a little to 
her comfort. Perhaps she expected the gentleman to 
do so. But she was too noble in mien and carriage, 
she impressed me too much, for me to offer her a tri- 
fling alms, lowly as her condition was. I turned my 
head, and if I had found that she was looking after me 
I should have gone back to give her more, perhaps, 
than I could afford. But I saw only her back, as she 
walked erectly and slowly on, with a grace which 
her burden and her condition could not repress, and 
which her poor garments rather revealed ; and at a 
turn in the lane she disappeared into its cool, clear 
twilight, and I only wished her health and happiness 
in her coming hour. 

I have lieretofore remarked that the dress of Eng- 
lish gentlemen is very plain and simple. For al- 
though Macaulay bought many embroidered waist- 
coats, in which he arraj^ed himself with great deliglit, 
this personal trait must be regarded as one of the 
eccentricities of genius.^ In its simplicity tlie Eng- 
lishman's dress is not unlike that of gentlemen of 
corresponding condition in this countr}^, but in his 
manner of wearing it there is a difference. Tidiness 
seems to be the most important point of dress in the 

1 This comparative sobriety of the English gentleman in external things 
seems to be a trait of race, and not a modem development. If we may be- 
lieve Massinger, it manifested itself even in the days when rich dress was 
a mark of rank : — 

" Viceroy. The slave is Tery fine 

Ciicuh. Your English slaves 

Are ever so ; I "ve seen an English slave 
Far finer than his master. There 's a state point 
Worthy your observation.'' 

_1 Very Woman, IV. 2 

This of course is tenfold truer now. 



ENGLISH MANNERS. 259 

eyes of a well-cared-for Englishman. Everything 
about him is snug. He is like a horse well groomed 
and harnessed. His morning coat, be it frock or 
" cutaway," is never flying loose, but is buttoned 
closely. This tidiness and completeness of apparel 
is a sort of religion. I remember being in a railway 
carriage with a young man who was very correct at 
all points, The day, which had opened gloomily, 
had suddenly cleared and become very warm. He 
was dressed in a heavy brown tweed suit, and every 
button of his coat was sent well home into its proper 
button-hole. Another gentleman and myself relieved 
ourselves by unbuttoning our coats, and I, as there 
was no lad_y there, opened my waistcoat ; for the air 
was damp as well as warm, and we were sweltering. 
But he would plainly have endured njartyrdom rather 
than be guilty of such looseness, and he sat impassi- 
ble, bolt upright and tightly buttoned. He suffered 
and was strong. I am sure that we all wished that 
he had been less true to his religion. 

The Englishman comes down in the morning com- 
pletely dressed in this tight, tidy way. He does not 
even indulge himself in the great luxury of easy life, 
a slippered breakfast, but comes wearing, in addition 
to his buttoned coat, stout, brightly-polished shoes. 
While I was in England I did not see one gentleman 
in slippers outside of his bedroom. This strait-laced- 
ness has its merits. English gentlemen at all times, 
unless they are recognized slovens, look trhn, well set 
up, presentable, and ready for service, whether busi- 
ness or pleasure. Nor do gentlemen in England of 
good position look as if their clothes were all bought, 
ready-made, at one " establishment," and as if they 
had slept in them the night before in a " palace-car.' 



260 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

The same praise cannot be given to Englishwomen, 
who, although they dress elaborately for the evening, 
go about in the morning, too many of them, with hair 
and dress the reverse of snug and tidy. 

Dinner is the great fact of English daily life. 
" Dine with me " is the Englishman's first request, if 
he likes you, or if he wishes to show you any atten- 
tion. A letter of introduction is honoredj by an in- 
vitation to dinner, and that given, nothing more is 
regarded as necessary ; anything more depends on 
kindness and personal liking. To some " Ameri- 
cans " this dining, which is always formal, becomes 
oppressive. A Yankee friend of mine, a man of in- 
telligence and charming manners, who, with ruddy 
cheeks and well-cut features, looks much more like 
tlie commonly entertained idea of a handsome Eng- 
lishman than most of the Englishmen I met, went to 
England well provided with letters, and was soon so 
wearied with these inevitable invitations to formal 
dinners that he stopped the presentation of his cre- 
dentials, and kept himself to himself. " I was bored 
to death," he said to me, " with the constant recur- 
rence of the regular routine, and the dull succession 
of eating and drinking in full dress. I did n't want 
their dinners; I wanted to see them at their houses, 
in an easy, informal way. As I could n't do that, I 
cut the matter short, and depended upon my own re- 
sources." As for myself, having taken no letters, 
I escaped these obligation dinners from strangers ; 
and in the half dozen dinner parties at which I was 
present I was more fortunate than he. Yet I saw 
enough of the heavy formality of these entertain- 
ments to be in some sympathy with him. 

The habit of saying grace is gradually passing 



ENGLISH MANNERS. 261 

away from the daily life of England, although if a 
clergyman is present he is invited to do his office ; 
and even that of family prayers is beginning to yield 
to broad-church latitudinarianism, notwithstanding 
the influence of high-church altitudinarianism and 
low-church platitudinarianism. In more than one 
instance I was informed that attendance at prayers 
was not insisted upon. But I also remember more 
than one in which grace before meat was made more 
graceful by coming from the li|)s of a fair daughter 
of the house. 

Table-talk at dinner is a much more formidable 
affair in England than it is with us. It is an " insti- 
tution." Men prepare themselves for it as they do 
to make a speech. In some cases host and hostess 
arrange what subjects shall be started to bring out 
certain guests; and the table is hushed while this or 
that clever man discourses, in sentences sometimes 
rather^ too carefully constructed, upon a subject which 
is as slyly but as deliberately dragged before him as 
a cork and string before a kitten, and which he jumps 
at much as his feline prototype does at tjie mimic 
mouse. ■ There is something of this kind with us 
among dinner givers of the more cultivated sort, but 
nothing to be compared with the formidable collo- 
quies of the formal English dinner. In England is 
found, moreover, the dinner soliloquist, whom I can- 
not but regard as a dreadful form of the social bore. 
I remember one such man at a dinner party of some 
twenty people. He began to talk after he had 
spooned his soup for a moment or two, and as he 
talked very pleasantly, his sonorous voice, going forth 
to the whole table, was a welcome help over the 
threshold of our entertainment. But he went on, 



262 ENGLvVND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

until his talk became a discourse. At each fall of 
his voice I supposed that he would stop ; but he man- 
aged to link one sentence to another until he bound 
us all up in an endless chain of words. Although not 
aged, he was too old a man to snub, and also too good- 
natured and too well informed. And he was tyran- 
nical in asserting himself. The sonority of his voice 
and the weight of his manner bore down all oppo- 
sition and thrust aside all auxiliaries. There was no 
conversation possible except little fragmentary tete- 
a-tetes with one's next neighbor. Straight through 
dinner and through dessert did that dreadful man 
hold forth. How he managed to eat, how to breathe, 
was a mystery. When the ladies had retired, he re- 
sumed his seat with a sentence beginning with an 
" and," that connected it with what he was saying 
when our hostess rose ; and he ceased not to pour 
down his flood of words upon us until we found ref- 
uge in the drawing-room. Such men are tolerated in 
England, perhaps, because they are useful in the 
performance of that most tedious and oppressive of 
all social- solemnities, a formal dinner party. I was 
about to say that such talkers would not be tolerated 
here ; but do we not listen to after-dinner speeches ? 
Where, then, is the limit of our endurance ? 

Dinner, even daily familjr dinner, is such a religious 
rite in England that above a certain condition of life 
a special dress for it is absolutely required. Full 
evening dress at dinner is in England the mark of 
gentry. I once made a mistake in this respect. Be- 
ing invited to a country house, some thirty miles 
from London, where I had time to stay but one day, 
and being a traveler, I thought that I might venture 
to go with only a small hand bag, and to appear at 



ENGLISH MANNEES. 263 

dinner in a dark frock. Bnt I found that I might 
better have brought my portmanteau, my dressing- 
case, and my valet, if I had had one. It would be 
impossible for me to say how I knew this, but I felt 
it in a way that could not be mistaken. The very 
flames of the wax candles in the great silver cande- 
labra seemed to look askance at me, as I dared to sit 
there in my plebeian costume. The feeling amused 
me ; for I have little real respect for mere social con- 
ventionalities, least of all for those which concern 
dress. That a gentleman should be scrupulously nice 
in his person at all times, and that it is well for him 
to dress becomingly and appropriately, need not be 
said ; but that he, as well as the butler and the wait- 
ers, must, under pain of social damnation, put on such 
a queer garment as a black swallow-tailed dress-coat 
and a white neck-tie, and that a lady should make her- 
self uncomfortable by her full dress (for that it does 
make them uncomfortable ladies will hardly deny) 
because they are going to eat and drink together, 
as they eat and drink every day, is not with me an 
article of saving faith. Such, however, is the social 
righteousness of these English people that it was edi- 
fying to an nnregenerate creature like me to see them 
at any time violate any one of their unwritten com- 
mandments ; and I took great comfort, one day, at 
seeing a belated honorable (that is, the son of a peer) 
come hastily in and sit down to dinner, like a pro- 
fane mortal, in his tweed coat. 

I also could not avoid observing that men who were 
very scrupulous about evening dress were less fastid- 
ious upon other points of manners which could hardly 
be called conventional. I have seen a peer, who 
would almost as soon dine in his shirt and trousers 



264 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

as in a morning coat, sit after dinner in the drawing- 
room talking with a lady, and, taking his foot upon 
his knee to nurse, gradually run his hand half-way 
up his trousers that he might scratch his leg; and his 
was not a solitary instance of performances somewhat 
of this khid. To me, " salvage man " as I am, born 
and bred in the wilderness of New York, and wont 
to roam with untutored mind from my native haunts 
over the waste places of New England, there did 
nevertheless seem to be some incongruity in the code 
of manners which prescribed swallow-tails, but per- 
mitted scratching, and which required buttoned coats 
and la(;ed-up boots at breakfast tables at which there 
were no napkins. 

In English society, however, the mere externals of 
manners, eating, drinking, dressing, and so forth, are 
much like those of " America " among well-bred peo- 
ple ; and in these respects the countries seem to be 
approaching rather than receding. But societ}^ there 
has yet a clearly defined form, which here it lacks. 
This is maintained by the influence of the great uni- 
versities, of the cathedral establishments, of the coun- 
try houses, of the county families, of Parliament, and 
of other long-established institutions in which the 
structure of society is involved. 



CHAPTER XII. 

SOME HABITS OP ENGLISH LIFE. 

The difference between manners — the subject of 
my last chapter — and habits of life is not great or 
strongly marked, and indeed the two things shade 
off into each with such delicate gradation that it is 
difficult to point out where one ends and the other 
begins. Soon, however, we reach from either side a 
line where we plainly see that one is what the other 
is not. This being the case, what I have to say now 
will seem in some respects a continuation of the fore- 
going chapter, but in others not so. If any of my 
readers are so bound to titles that this incongruity 
will disturb them, I am sorry ; but I beg them to re- 
member that on this occasion and in this respect the 
fault is not with the writer, but in the subject. 

Whether discipline in the British army is stricter 
than it is in the army of the United States I do not 
know ; I had no opportunity of making a compari- 
son. In other departments of life it need hardly be 
said that rules are more rigidly enforced and author- 
ity is more absolutely maintained there than here. 
When Cl^^rles II. visited Westminster School, Dr. 
Busby, the head master, kept on his hat before the 
king lest the scholars might suppose there was a 
greater man than he. It would seem that the doctor 
might have taught deference better by showing it ; 
but his good-natured majesty allowed the plea. The 



266 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

discipline of domestic life is insisted upon witli an 
exacting precision unknown to " Americans " of the 
present day, and not, it seemed to me, disadvanta- 
geously. I was much impressed and amused upon one 
occasion of observing this difference. It was on a 
visit to Knole, in Kent, — one of the most interest- 
ing among the remaining great houses of the Tudor 
period. I was visiting for a day or two at a house 
not many miles from Knole, and my host kindly 
drove over there with me one Sunday afternoon. My 
expectations of pleasure were very high ; for Knole 
is in perfect preservation, and is built on such a 
scale of magnificence that it contains, if I remember 
rightly, no less than eighty-seven staircases. Its 
oaken carvings, its corridors, and its bay-windows — 
if we may believe prints and photographs — fully 
justify the epithet " very noble " which Pepys so 
often applies to his dinners, and as a whole are hardly 
surpassed in England for their beauty and their char- 
acter. It is indeed a perfect example of that admi- 
rable and truly English style of domestic architecture 
which on the decay of feudalism succeeded the cas- 
tle. 

Our drive was delightful; for the day was fine, 
and Kent is called the garden of England. Our lit- 
tle jaunt was not without its little incident, which al- 
though trifling was significant, because my cicerone 
was a nobleman of high rank, and of historic name. 
As we were rolling along the smooth roads we met 
a party of two or three taking a Sunday afternoon 
stroll. When we drew near each other my host rec- 
ognized them, and exclaiming, " Oh, there are the 

s!'" bade the coachman pull up. He sprang 

out, and greeted them warmly ; and there was a lit- 



SOME HABITS OF ENGLISH LIFE. 267 

tie chat, with reciprocal inquiries and invitations. 
On resuming his place at my side, he apologized for 

the interruption, saying good-naturedly, " The s 

are very estimable people, and one does n't like to 
pass one's neighbors on a Sunday without a pleasant 
word." This would have been nothing Avorth re- 
mark had not I known the s by name and by 

reputation. They were very rich, and had recently 
established themselves in a country-seat in Kent ; 
but according to English social gradation they were 
inferior in rank even to merchants ; for they had 
grown rich, not by trade, but by a trade, and the 
family still carried on the practice of their art and 
mystery. Yet there could have been nothing sim- 
pleipi, franker, or heartier than my host's manner with 
them. It was altogether unlike the manner that, 
according to generally preconceived notions, might 
have been expected under the circumstances from a 
nobleman of his rank and position. I fear that as he 
was apologizing to me there was a snobbish note of 
exclamation in one of my eyes, and one of interro- 
gation in the other ; for, although I did not say a 
word or make a motion, he added kindly and simply, 
" I don't think it 's kind or nice [nice is a great word 
in England] to treat such excellent people coldly 
when they are neighbors." It is only right that I 
should addj^ithat, because of his public position, in 
him popular manners were not only becoming, but 

might be serviceable, and that the s had a great 

establishment. But truly, I do not believe that he 
was influenced by this consideration ; for when he 
was here in his younger days, he had been remarked 
by all who knew him well* for simplicity of manners 
and thorough good nature. 



268 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

We soon entered Knole Park, a place the very- 
sight of which begat in my soul a serene and placid 
joy. It is grandly timbered, and is more undulating 
than any other park that I had the good fortune to 
see. It was manifestly open to the whole neighbor- 
hood on Sunday afternoons at least ; for we saw 
groups, some of them very rustic in appearance and 
manners, walking over the greensward, or sitting un- 
der the great trees. And these people seemed to en- 
joy themselves much more heartily than any that I 
had ever seen in "America " on a similar Sunday or 
Saturday outing. The chief reason of this difference 
appeared to me that they did not stand upon their 
dignity, nor give their minds to being or to seeming 
as elegant and as fine as anybody else. If the old 
French chronicler found that the English people took 
their pleasure sadly, according to their custom, what 
would he say to the pleasure-taking of the English 
race under the elevating influences of democratic in- 
stitutions ! Whenever we approached these strolling 
parties near enough, they saluted us deferentially, 
but cheerily ; and although my friend's equipage and 
his face were probably well known in the neighbor- 
hood, my general observation leads me to believe that 
the same would have been the case if we had both 
been strangers. 

All thi'ough the park were fine beeches ; and those 
which stood near the stone wall which shut in the 
gardens and private grounds, and over which the 
quaint but graceful gables of the great house peered, 
were the largest and grandest trees of the kind that 
I ever saw. Their roots, which, after the habit of 
the beech, began to spread well above ground, seemed 
sometimes to me like great buttresses of the majestic, 



SOME HABITS OF ENGLISH LIFE. 269 

towering trunks, and at others like monstrous claws 
thrust savagely out to clutch the earth and bear it up 
into the air. The beeches at Knole, as I learned 
afterwards, are famous as being among the finest in 
all England. 

We drove to the gate-way, descended, and pulled 
the bell by a chain ending in a knobbed handle, 
which hung by the door-post. A little door in the 
great gate opened, and a porter presented himself 
who was the very reverse of the "proud porter" of 
the old ballads. He was a fat little man, — so fat 
that he seemed to stick in the door-way. He wore 
a bright scarlet waistcoat, to the making of which 
there went much cloth. His face was beardless, 
sleek, and jolly, although it was sobered with evi- 
dent effort to the decorum of his function ; possi- 
bly also by the consciousness of a disagreeable duty 
which he knew that he must perform. He was much 
such a looking man as the late distinguished and ro- 
tund comedian, Mr. William Blake, would have been 
if he had got himself up in a scai'let vt^aistcoat as a 
porter. My compailion gave him good-day, and say- 
ing that we should like to see the house, stepped for- 
ward to lead the way in. " Beg pa'don, m'lud," said 
the little man, keeping himself directly in the door- 
way, " but Lord Sackville said that no one was to be 
allowed to come in wiles he was away. There 's 
work goin' on; the 'ouse is a-bein' repaired." I saw 
ray friend's countenance fall ; but he brightened up 
in a moment, and said, " Could n't you let us in ? 
I 've driven over just to show my friend the house." 
" Very sorry, m'lud, that I can't let you come in, but 
his lordship's orders was very p'ticler : " and he stood 
in the door-way, deferential, very deferential — in 



270 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

manner, but a veiy firm, immovable, round little 
fact. My kind companion was evidently much dis- 
appointed ; and seeing that the porter knew him he 
said, making another effort on my behalf, " I 'm sure 
that if my friend, Lord Sackville, were here he would 
let us in, and I wish very much to have this gentle- 
man see the house. It 's his only opportunity." "No 
doubt, m'lud, his lordship would be most happy, if he 
was here ; but my orders was very p'ticler, m'lud, — 
no one to come in wiles he was away." Apology 
and firmness could not have been more completely or 
more happily combined than they were in the face 
and manner and speech of this jolly little red-waist- 
coated porter. My friend looked ruefully in my face, 
and we got into the carriage again. As we drove off, 
after expressing his sorrow that I should have been 
so disappointed, he said, " I could have gone in, of 
course ; for Lord Sackville and I are friends, and I 
saw the man knew me well. I could have easily 
pushed past him and have told him that I would 
make it all right with Sackville, as of course I could 
have done ; but I did n't exactly like to show him 
the examjDle of disobeying orders. Indeed, I 'm very 
sorry." As for me, I was sorely disappointed, but 
on the whole glad that the matter had ended as it 
did. It would have been a great pleasure to me to see 
Knole, with its eighty-seven staircases ; but I don't 
know that it would have been greater than to see a 
nobleman of my companion's rank and position, a 
county magistrate too (a high position in England), 
yield gracefully and turn away from the door of his 
friend's empty house, which he had driven miles to 
see, rather than by a little gentle aggression lead a 
mere liveried servant into what would have been 



SOME HABITS OF ENGLISH LIFE. 271 

OBly a constructive disobedience of orders. My re- 
spect for the porter was great ; but my respect for 
my friend was even greater than it had been before. 

The mention of the careless and hearty enjoyment 
of their Sunday's pleasure by the rustic visitors of 
Knole Park reminds me that in London I came again 
and again upon little groups of children dancing in 
dingy courts upon the damp pavement. It might 
be drizzling rain, although not enough to wash their 
faces, yet they, poor hatless, shoeless, almost break- 
fastless creatures, danced, and danced merrily, with- 
out other music than that of their own little pipes, 
which they set up, unlike Chaucer's prioress, without 
entuning in their noses full sweetly. Such a sight 
could not be seen among the free and enlightened 
inhabitants of this country, except indeed among 
the children of German emigrants, who are often 
tempted into street saltation by brass bands, and 
even by hand-©rgans. But where among real "Amer- 
icans " — the Yankees or the Virginians, for example 
— would you find hatless and shoeless boys and girls 
dancing in the open air in mere childish gayety of 
heart ? Let us not boast untruly ; the hatlessness, 
the shoelessness, the rags, and the dirt, we might 
find ; but where the capacity of happiness which can 
despise rags, rejoice in bare, heads and feet, revel in 
dirt, and set at naught falling water ? 

And yet these people work much harder than we 
do, and for less wages. They do what I have never 
seen done in this country, — work in their gardens, 
if not in their fields, on Sunday. I have mentioned 
my surprise at hearing the cries of street venders in 
London on Sunday ; it was even a greater novelty to 
me to see on my Sunday walks in the country, wher- 



272 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

ever I went, men, evidently respectable and in com- 
fortable circumstances, at work with spade and hoe 
and rake among their vegetables. If I stopped to 
speak to them, which I did if I were near enough, they 
did not seem at all as if they were surprised in doing 
something of which they should be ashamed, or show 
the least shyness. Shyness, however, they would not 
be likely to show in any case, as I soon discovered. 
The existence of established ranks has the effect of 
causing a greater freedom of manner than is usual 
with us among people in any condition of life. They 
have fewer reserves ; they have need of fewer. 

In illustration of this I recall a sight that I saw in 
Hyde Park one soft autumnal morning. I was to 
take luncheon at a house near the park ; and as I was 
Avhiling away the latter part of the morning by a 
stroll through this noble pleasure-ground, I came 
upon two women, one sitting and the other reclining 
upon the grass. As I drew near thefti, I perceived 
that one was middle-aged and the other very young. 
Their likeness showed that they were mother and 
daughter, although the look of the girl's wan face 
and wistful eyes was very unlike the bright and 
rugged comeliness of the matron's. In a moment it 
was plain that the mother had brought her ailing 
daughter there for the benefit of the sun and air. 
The girl lay upon a shawl, with her body all in the 
sun ; but her head rested in her mother's lap, which 
was in the shade. I stopped and spoke to the mother. 
Her language was good, and the inflections of her 
voice, although hardly refined, were not coarse. They 
were evidently not what we should call poor people, 
but humbly well to do — so much so that I should 
not have thought of offering a gratuity (although 



SOME HABITS OF ENGLISH LIFE. 273 

the shilling-receptive faculty in England rises very- 
high) ; but yet they sat out together in this way 
in such a very public place, and talked freely and 
pleasantly with a stranger, without any of that shy- 
ness and reserve and consciousness which would have 
been found among people of their condition in "Amer- 
ica." 

Most Englishmen of the lower-middle class and 
the lower class in cities have a way of walking which 
is a distinguishing habit of common life. I had ob- 
served it in Englishmen of this sort in the streets of 
New York, where I could tell them by it as far as 
I could see them. They lay themselves out in their 
walking, as if they were doing a day's work. They 
walk not only with their feet and legs, but with their 
hips and their shoulders and their arms, not swing- 
ing the latter-, but arching them out more or less fi-om 
their sides, and putting them forward stiffly as they 
step. Withal they look conscious of their walking, 
and seem well pleased that they are doing it cor- 
rectly. This gait and carriage of body is most re- 
markable in the soldiers that one sees about the 
streets of London and of garrison towns like Canter- 
bury, and in the cockney creature who has come to 
be known by the generic name 'Arry. You will meet 
two soldiers tightened up to the extreme of endur- 
ance in their scarlet shell jackets, with little flat caps 
so far down the sides of their heads that you cannot 
see why they hesitate at coming down all the way, 
and these two fellows, one of whom is pretty sure to 
carry a rattan with a jaunty air, will take up the 
room of three men by the set-out of their four arms 
from their four sides, and will walk as if" their loco- 
motion, instead of being by human muscles, were by 

18 



274 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

clockwork and steam. The number of tlieir imita- 
tors cannot be told. An English gentleman has none 
of this toilsome swagger. He walks quite easily and 
unconsciously^, and generally with a good, manly 
stride, just as a man of corresponding condition of 
life in Boston, New York, or Philadelphia walks. But 
in those places you will not see in persons of inferior 
condition that strange mode of locomotion which I 
liave endeavored to describe. 

On being measured by a London tailor whose cus- 
tom was among the best people, I was surprised at 
the inquiry whether I would have a " pistol-pocket " 
in my trousers. It was the first time that I had had 
such a question put to me. But I found that this 
provision for carrying conce?ded fire-arms under the 
coat-skirts is quite as common in England as it is in 
that dreadful country which the British Philistine 
critic of society so constantly uses as a frightful ex- 
ample. Nor was I without confirming testimony on 
the subject. The inquiry reminded me of a passage 
in a story called " The Going Out of Alessandro 
Pozzone," which I read in one of the London maga- 
zines. An Englishman intends to investigate, and 
perhaps to avenge, the suspected murder of his fa- 
ther by an Italian, Pozzone ; and at the end of the 
story are these two paragraphs : — 

" When this was done, be put his hand under his coat- 
tails for a moment, as if to tighten the back-strap of his 
waistcoat ; did not tighten the strap ; went and got bis hat ; 
descended the steps from the dining-room into the garden, 
opened the garden gate, and went out into the lane." 

He provokes an assault by his victim, and then — 
" The Englishman drew himself up with a powerful ef- 



SOME HABITS OF ENGLISH LIFE. 275 

fort, shook himself clear of his assailant, slipped his hand 
beneath his waistcoat as though to loose its strap, drew out 
the hand — 
" Bang ! " 

Could there be a "higher-toned" proceeding than 
that, or one, according to British censure, more thor- 
oughly "American"? The matter-of-course way in 
which the manoeuvre and the preparation for it are 
rather hinted at than told is very significant. I will 
add that I saw more bowie-knives in London shop- 
windows during a few weeks' residence than I had 
seen in all my life ill New York, although I found it 
not easy to get there or in Birmingham or in Liver- 
pool a pocket-knife of first-rate quality. 

Gentlemen in England have a very general fashion 
of wearing rings in what seemed to me a very lady- 
like way. Upon the hand of a man who can afford 
to keep it clean and out of danger of knocks and 
blows, a signet ring, engraved with a cipher, a crest, 
or a beautiful design, seems fit and becoming. Nor 
are we unaccustomed to see examples of annular gor- 
geousness — notably vast amethysts — upon hands 
which are not so cared for. But this is not the ring- 
wearing of gentlemen in England. There small 
rings set with stones are in favor. Diamonds set in 
heavy hoops, rubies as eyes in the heads of golden 
snakes which coil three or four times around the fin- 
ger, diamonds and rubies, diamonds and sapphires, in 
alternation, are seen upon the fingers of most of the 
men who are above the lower-middle class, — noble- 
men, clergymen, army officers, university dons, hard- 
headed men of affairs, merchants. Not one ring 
only ; indeed, a single ring upon a man's hand is 
rather exceptional. You shall see a big fellow with 



276 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

big brown hands, or an elderly man of staid business 
liabits, ■with three or even four jeweled rings upon 
bis fingers ; not unfrequently there will be two upon 
one finger. The turquoise is in great favor, — the 
most unmanly and woman-proper of all precious 
stones, in my judgment; most suitable to the fairest 
and daintiest of the sex. It is frequently alternated 
with the diamond on a heavy hoop, a wide space be- 
ing left between the stones. The fashion impressed 
me as quite incongruous with manly dignity and sim- 
plicity. But perhaps this was merely because I was 
unaccustomed to it. I know th^t I saw a man whom 
I knew to be a gentleman, and had good reason to 
believe not unmanly, with a diamond ring and a 
plain hoop on one finger, a turquoise on another, and 
a ruby-eyed snake whose coils covered one joint of a 
third. If he and his beringed fellows had not been 
of my own blood and speech I should not have 
thought this habit remarkable ; but thus it strikes 
a stranger who is yet not a foreigner. 

Certain small exactions in England irritate the 
stranger, accustomed to the freedom from such petty 
taxation which prevails in the United States. For 
example, you are expected to pay for time-tables 
at railway stations, and for a bill of the play and 
toilet privileges at the theatres. The supplying of 
most of these needs is a little business which is farmed 
out to people in humble circumstances. The prac- 
tice is not peculiar to England, but prevails upon the 
Continent. Englishmen, however, are beginning to 
fret under it, and to protest against it ; and ere long 
it will probably pass away, and England will be on 
one moi'e trifling point " Americanized." 

One sweet trait of English life I must not forget, 



SOME HABITS OF ENGLISH LIFE. 277 

negative althougli it is. During the whole of my 
visit, neither in town nor country, north, south, east, 
or west, did I see a spittoon, — not one. I did not 
miss the things, and it was not until my visit was al- 
most over that I noted their absence, although the 
difference of the two countries in this respect is a 
very noteworthy fact in household economy. For, 
looking out of a back window this morning, did I not 
count seventeen of them leaning against the house- 
wall of my neighbor, Mrs. Hashitt, who takes a few 
genteel boarders ? — seventeen, so help me Santa 
Cloacina, gorgeous in crimson and green and gold, 
with their foul maws empty, and their great fuming 
mouths turned up to the blessed sun ! She, being a 
woman of elegant language, calls 'em cuspidores ; 
why, the genius of gentility who presides over her 
establishment, including the seventeen, only knows. 
But neither spittoon nor cuspidore saw I in England. 
The absence of this unlovely utensil is due in a 
great measure to the fact that in England a decent 
man is as unlikely to chew tobacco as in America a 
decent man is likely to wish the ladies of his acquaint- 
ance to know that he chews it. (In vain, however, 
are all his concealments and devices ; for the breath of 
a tobacco-chewer harbingers his approach before he is 
visible.) But it is also to be remarked that the nat- 
ural tendency to spitting of any kind is much less in 
England than it is here. Our climate — meaning 
chiefly the dry wind from west and northwest — 
causes an irritation of the throat and the nostrils 
which produces such a secretion of saliva and of mu- 
cus as in England is almost unknown to those who 
are in health. It is nearly impossible for a man to 
pass a day here, except in summer or in early au- 



278 ENGLAND, WITPIOUT AND WITHIN. 

tumn, without relieving his mouth of some irritation 
of this kind, at least — as Mr. Everett said that he 
blew his nose — "in the privacy of me own apart- 
ment." But while I was in England I was quite free 
from any such annoyance.^ 

In England everybody seems to have leisure time. 
A gentleman is always supposed to have time to wait, 
to sit down, to chat, unless he has shut himself up 
that he may work. At an eating-house, unless you 
dine table dliote fashion, d la carte, the time which 
elapses between your sitting at table and the appear- 
ance of what you have ordered would be a sore trial 
to most Yankees. If I had opportunity to look, about 
me and observe my neighbors, I did not mind it ; but 
once or twice when I was shut up in a box all alone, 
with no company but thoughts and memories, 1 fret- 
ted at my forced idleness, although I do not believe 
that rapid movement is the greatest of %1 bless- 
ings. Perhaps it is because the Englishman moves 
so quickly and so punctually when he does move that 
he is able to take life leisurely at some time of day. 
Your very railway traveling seems there a form of 
leisure, a kind of rest, a soft, swift-passing silence. 
You are taken noiselessly off at an appointed minute, 
carried along with such nearly silent speed that you 
seem to be sitting still to see the world glide past you, 

1 Our British kinsmen are, however, a little too "bumptious" in their 
criticisms on this point. They talk and -write as if this unpleasant habit 
were unheard of in England, and should be set down as one of those Amer- 
icanisms they are so eager to discover. They forget that Rosalind tells 
Orlando that under certain circumstances " the cleanliest shift is to spit; " 
that in the same play we learn that "hawking and spitting were ever the 
prologues to a bad voice; " that George Brmnmell, that model of British 
elegance, declared that " it was impossible to spit in clay," and had there- 
fore a silver spittoon; and that Miss Edgeworth tells us in Patronage that 
English Clay paid a coachman to "teach him the true spit," to attain 
which this peculiarlj^ English gentleman sacrificed one of his front teeth. 



SOME HABITS OF ENGLISH LIFE. 279 

and you are set noiselessly down at the appointed 
minute. You may not only read, but you may talk 
with as much ease and comfort as if you were in a 
library or a drawing-room, and indeed can write let- 
ters which may be read without difficulty. But as to 
leisure, even the poorest man seems to have it, if he 
quits his work at all. If an artisan takes a glass of 
beer with a friend, they sit down to it, if they sit on 
kegs with a barrel-head between them as a table. 
Their beer seems to be drunk not merely to sup- 
ply fluid waste and to furnish needed stimulant, but 
rather as a festive accompaniment and garnish of a 
brief time of leisure. The making of a mere gutter 
of the throat is in England, I believe that I may say 
in Europe, almost unknown. Indeed, there are other 
tilings besides the star of empire that westward take 
their way. The farther westward, the greater the 
tendency to perpendicularity in potation. The Ori- 
ental squats at his sherbet or his coffee ; the ancients 
who dwelt around the Mediterranean Sea reclined as 
they drank ; the Frenchman sits at his ease over his 
thin limonade or his cafe noir ; the Englishman at 
least plumps himself down upon bench or settle, and 
sits there, even if in semi-silence, until his beer is 
drunk ; the " American," standing erect and solemnly 
announcing " My respects to you, sir," pours the fluid 
into his person, sets down the glass, and silently 
makes off about his business. Leisure would seem 
to be almost undeniably a condition of mental ripe- 
ness and of bodily grace. Wisdom and fine manners 
have always come from the East. 

One reason of the possession of leisure time by 
Englishmen in so notable a degree seemed to me to 
be that there is little time spent by them in seeming 



280 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

to- be what they are not. For the doing of this is a 
great consumer of time. The eiadeavor to be as fine 
as anybody, to live, or to seem to hve, as luxuriously 
as those of much larger means live, is in itself, and 
quite apart from the question of income and outgo, a 
heavy draft upon all the forces, intellectual, moral, 
and material. In particular it uses up that part of 
time which, not being given to work or to the daily 
round of duties, would otherwise be leisure. That 
the tendency to this endeavor is favored and in- 
creased by a democratic form of society is the least 
that can be said. In- fact, democracy urges, spurs, 
goads, all those under its dominion, except the few 
who are so independent in thought and in feeling as 
to be sufficient unto themselves, into this kind of so- 
cial dishonesty, — dishonesty, because it is an imposi- 
tion upon one's neighbors, and an attempted delusion 
of one's self. For in a democratic society, although 
there must be various conditions of life, the absence 
of established rank, and even of any perceptible and 
admitted distinctions of class, involves also the ab- 
sence of the idea of fitness, of that which is becom- 
ing to the individual. In such a society money is the 
only standard of estimation the j)ropriety of which is 
generally recognized. That is fit for a man which he 
can afford ; and whether it is becoming is a matter of 
personal taste, — concerning which it is not to be dis- 
puted. Hence, the shocking and ridiculous incon- 
gruities in wealthy democratic societies. Probably 
in no other place since the world began has the jewel 
of gold been so often seen in the swine's snout as in 
New York, — New York, which with the elements of 
the finest society in the world has really nothing 
which may be rightly called a society ; because, not 



SOME HABITS OF ENGLISH LIFE. 281 

being a capital nor even a metropolis, not being the 
centre of any interest, political, literary, artistic, or 
even social, other than a commercial interest, it has 
come to be merely a place for the speedy getting and 
the speedier spending of money. 

That a condition of things having some likeness to 
this exists in England, and particularly in London, no 
one who is even moderately well informed vipon the 
subject would think for a moment of disputing. But 
notwithstanding the social tendencies of the time, 
there are influences which greatly modify that condi- 
tion and restrain its materialmanifestations. There 
is the influence of the nobility and gentry, unavoid- 
able, indisputable, irresponsible ; there is the influ- 
ence of the great universities, a powerful and con- 
stant, although a silent force ; there is the influence 
of the established church, and of the army and navy ; 
and, moreover, there is the widely diffused sense of 
subordination and of decorum ; all of which are checks 
upon the aggressiveness of mere rich and vulgar pre- 
tension. To go no higher, the man who is " in holy 
orders," or he who " serves her Majesty," although 
he may not have two hundred pounds a year, has a 
position which, notwithstanding the boasted omnip- 
otence of money and its real power in society, mere 
money cannot give in England. And although the 
clergyman and the soldier may fawn upon Croesus, 
Croesus knows this, and they know it ; and because 
of it he lets them fawn, and pays them for their 
fawning. 

Indeed, social shamming is of very little avail in 
England. The shamming must be very good to 
make any impression at all ; and even then its suc- 
cess is short-lived. It is soon exposed, and quietly 



282 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

put down. The very country folk, the farmers, the 
villagers, and the farm laborers, will not put up with. 
country-geiitleman airs and old-family graces on the 

part of new landlords. Lord A , wealthiest of 

such raw country magnates, was openly snubbed by 
his humble neighbors when he took upon himself the 
gracious airs of a lord of the soil, and was given to 
understand that with all his money and his newly 
acquired acres he was only a rich Londoner. And 
Mr. Disraeli could not use such a word as " after- 
math " to his rural neighbors around Hughenden, or 
speak to them of weather " which gives that bright- 
ness to the barley which farmers love to see," with- 
out being girded at by all the scoffing scribes of her 
Majesty's opposition. La which they are hardly fair ; 
for Mr. Disraeli, Hebrew litterateur although he was, 
inherited his little manor of Hughenden, and surely 
might have used any good English rural phrase with 
at least as much propriety as there was in his being 
an English earl. , But Englishmen are notably intol- 
erant of any social pretension of this sort, and even 
the slightest exhibition of it is sure to provoke de- 
rision.^ 

The distinction between persons who are " in 
trade " and those who are not is insisted uj)on with 
constant vigilance. This discrimination is perpetu- 
ated and deepened by the etiquette of the court. If 
there are any '-■'■ American " ladies who value their 
privilege of going to court (and at the United States 
legation it is believed that some such still remain), 
it would be well for them to remember this absolute 

1 1 should say that the lordship of five thousand acres for three genera- 
tions was requisite to the attainment of a well established, recognized 
position among the count}'' families. 



SOME HABITS OF ENGLISH LIFE. 283 

law when tliey accept the marriage proposals of Brit- 
ish subjects. I knew of a case in which one of them 
was married to a wealthy British merchant, and, go- 
ing to England, lived very luxuriously ; but as the 
wife of a British subject in trade she could not go to 
court ; while her unmarried sister, being what Pepys 
would have called a she-citizen of the United States, 
was solemnly and triumphantly presented. This dis- 
tinction is carried to absurd extreme by some per- 
sons, generally women, who, although within the 
court circle, are of snobbish natures, and generally 
of new-born gentility. It has been told recently in 
a London newspaper of an- English lady, whose mar- 
ried name is of most "base and mechanical " origin, 
that, having had one interview with a governess 
whom she thought of engaging, and having been 
much pleased with her, she on the second interview 
informed her that she was sorry that she could not 
engage her, as she had discovered that she had lived 
in a family the head of which was " in trade," — Sir 
Bache Cunard. The governess was the gainer by 
this manifestation of vulgar pretense and fastidious- 
ness, for her services were soon afterwards engaged 
by a duchess. But in an aristocratic society, no less 
than in a barber's shop, a line must be drawn some- 
where ; and the England of to-day draws it at trade. 
Nor does the consciousness of the consequent dis- 
tinction, ever present with those who are either 
above or below the line, imply arrogance on the one 
part or subservience on the other. It is recognized 
and insisted on by no persons more than by domestic 
servants, who, as I shall have occasion to remark 
hereafter, are great sticklers for rank and precedence. 
A lady who was of rank both by birth and by mar- 



284 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

riage, and who was the mistress of a great house, told 
me, as she was kindly explaining to me some of the 
details of such an establishment, that she had once 
seen a very nice-looking young woman who offered 
herself for service, and being much pleased with her 
appearance had expressed a wish to the housekeeper 
that she should be engaged. But after a quasi-com- 
petitive examination of the candidate, the house- 
keeper reported and said, " That girl is a nice girl, 
but she would not suit me at all, my lady. She has 
only lived at rich merchants' houses in town, and at 
their little trumpery villas ; and she knows nothing 
of the ways of great houses." The lady yielded ; for 
in such matters a person of her rank submits entirely 
to housekeeper and to butler, who are held responsi- 
ble, and to whom all orders are generally given. 

1 have heretofore remarked that what is called an 
English basement house is, according to my observa- 
tion, unknown in England. There is another little 
delusion very prevalent among us, — that tea only is 
drunk at English breakfasts, which consists besides 
chieil}^ of eggs and toast ; and we have " English 
breakfast tea" as we have English basement houses, 
and one with about as much reason as the other. I 
found coffee much more generally taken at breakfast 
than tea, although both were usually on the table. 
Eggs I saw rarely, and toast hardly ever. Indeed, I 
was offered eggs at breakfast only once while I was 
in England, and then I did not get them, although it 
was at a country house. I was sitting next my host- 
ess, who remarked across the table to her husband 
that the lawn, v^^hich was in sight from the window, 
seemed to need trimming. Within so short a time 
that it seemed almost like magic, three men were at 



SOME HABITS OF ENGLISH LIFE. 286 

■work with hand mowing-machines under our eyes. 
Just then she asked me if I would not have an egg. 
I accepted the offer, and she rang a far-off bell by- 
pulling a little contrivance at her side. A maid ap- 
peared, and the order for boiled eggs was given. The 
maid quickly returned, and said, "Please, my lady, 
there are no eggs this morning." Here was an Eng- 
lishwoman whose husband was lord of thousands of 
acres, and at her country house, although at a word 
she could have a company of gardeners to smooth her 
lawn to her liking, she had not an egg to her break- 
fast. If I had asked for a boiled cherub I could not 
have been told with more nonchalance that there 
were no cherubim that morning. 

The talk at brealdast, and even at dinner, in such 
houses turns not unfrequently upon the estate and its 
management : what timber may be cut, what plant- 
ing is needed, what farm leases are falling in, and 
whether the present tenants shall be continued, and 
how they manage their farms. In these consulta- 
fions the ladies join and offer their opinions, which 
ai'e received with consideration ; and the younger 
brothers, one or two of whom are almost always liv- 
ing at home, are looked to to take an interest and an 
active part in the management of the estate. This 
made the table-talk much more interesting and in- 
structive to me than if it had been confined to poli- 
tics, society, and " Shakespeare taste, and the musical 
glasses," although these latter subjects had their full 
share of attention. I was impressed, as I have here- 
tofore remarked, with the wide range of topics upon 
which these sensible, highly educated women were 
able to give, in their quiet, modest way, sound opin- 
ions and suggestions. They were rarely " smart," 



286 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

but tliey were sagacious ; and they seemed to have 
the family interests much at heart. 

The " unprotected female," who furnished John 
Leech with some of his happiest and most amusing 
subjects, I did not find so common as I had expected 
to find her ; but I met with one beautiful specimen 
on my way to Canterbury. She was beautiful as a 
specimen ; but the utmost stx-etch of gallantry would 
not allow me to predicate any kind of beauty of her 
as a woman. I had taken a cross-line from a little 
place which I was visiting, and I had some time to 
spend at the station, waiting for the train on the main 
line. As I walked the platform, there emerged from 
the booking office a short, dumpy, elderly woman in 
a loose gray dress, which did not conceal her fatness 
or lengthen her shortness. She wore large, round, 
silver-rimmed spectacles, carried a bulging umbrella, 
and her bonnet would have given a New York milli- 
ner, even in Division Street, a fit of nervous horror. 
But she was evidently a well-to-do person, and, al- 
though as fidgety and as confused as a weather-cocR 
in a change of wind, quite able to take care of her- 
self. She looked about for a few moments through 
her great glass artificial eyes, which seemed to have 
the effect of magnifying the unsatisfactory points in 
the condition of things before her, and then bus- 
tling up to a porter who was carrying an armful of 
parcels she exclaimed, " Where 's my things? That 's 
mine [pointing with her elephantme umbrella to 
one of the parcels]. Put it down. What are you 
going to do with it? I don't want to go by this 
train. I don't like this train. Where 's my tin box? 

Miss , she 's a young lady at Riverhead, told me 

that if I came here at a quarter past twelve I should 



SOME HABITS OF ENGLISH LIFE. 287 

have a nice train to take me to Tunb ridge ; and now 
I 'm to have a nasty train, and to wait till half past 
one." The man smiled good-naturedly, and, turning 
a half- winking eye to me, went on his way. She 
trotted after him, expostulating, and clamoring for 
her tin box. Presently she trotted back, and went 
about pottering and cackling and stirring things up 
like an old hen in a muck heap. My time to go soon 
came, and I left her waiting for her nasty train. 

I suppose that this old lady traveled second-class, 
as the phrase is in England. She would not have 
felt at home in a first-class carriage, and would be- 
sides have grudged the extra shillings ; and a third- 
class carriage she would surely have regarded as very 
nasty, that is, unpleasant. Between second-class peo- 
ple and first-class people there is less sympathy and 
good fellowship than there is between third-class and 
first-class. I remember hearing a peer and an Ox- 
ford don discuss the economy of railway traveling; 
and they agreed heartily that it was pleasanter to 
travel third-class than second-class ; third-class people 
were not so disagreeable as second-class. Now the 
third-class carriages are very cramped and uncomfort- 
able, and the passengers are of the humblest and 
coarsest sort. But thus it ever is : we are more an- 
noyed by the unpleasant peculiarities of those who 
are most like us, and yet are not of us, than by the 
stranger and perhaps more offensive habits of those 
whose remoteness from us relieves us from any impli- 
cation with them or their affairs. 

Sharply as classes are defined in England, in com- 
parison with the uniformity in this country (for of 
course they shade into each other there, and the 
shading becomes year by year broader and more ob- 



288 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

literative of the established lines), first-class people 
are not always distinguislied from their inferiors by 
English people of dull perceptions. The friend at 
whose house I was going to lunch, when I saw the 
mother with her invalid daughter in Hyde Park, told 
me with much amusement of his being mistaken for 
a shoemaker. He is the second son of a distinguished 
man " with a handle to his name," and is himself a 
man of mark. A friend of his, quite inferior to him 
in social rank, had ordered a pair of shoes of peculiar 
make of his shoemakei', and by mistake they had 
been sent to Ms house. He was about calling upon 
his friend, and being a very easy-going man, and not 
at all fussy about his personal appearance, he took 
the shoes in a parcel with him. And by the way, 
to do this in London a man must be very easy-going 
indeed. For to carry a parcel, however small, or 
however elegantly wrapped, through London streets 
is something which a " gentleman " would not think 
of doing much sooner than he would think of walk- 
ing through them in his shirt-sleeves. The tiniest 
purchase, which would not make your waistcoat 
pocket bulge, is solemnly sent home to you as a mat- 
ter of course. But you may carry a book, if it is not 
too large and is not wrapped up. A book is a book ; 
but a parcel may be a pound of cheese, or a pair of 
shoes. At his friend's door my shoe-carrying friend 

asked to see Mr. , and was understood by the 

servant to ask for Mrs. , to whom he was di- 
rectly taken. The lady, who had never seen him be- 
fore, looked up, and asked curtly, "What have you 

there ? " " Mr. 's shoes," was the reply. " Oh, 

yes ; quite so, quite so. It 's all right. Mr. is 

out, but he '11 be in soon, and if you want to see him 



• SOME HABITS OF ENGLISH LIFE. 289 

you 'd better take a seat in the hall, and wait till 
he comes." " But, madam " — began my friend. 
"Never mind, never mind ; it 's all quite right. Step 

out in the hall, please, and wait for Mr. ." The 

gentleman appreciated the situation at once, and had 
much too teen a sense of humor to spoil it by an ex- 
planation. He therefore did step out into the hall, 
intending to give the shoes to a servant and go on his 
way rejoicing in his joke. But he met his friend 
coming in, and, being too considerate of his friend's 
wife to put her to the blush and enjoy her confusion 
by returning, he gave the shoes to their owner, and 
after a few words upon the occasion of his visit bade 
him good-morning. If he should chance to read this 
chapter, I hope that he will pardon me for repeating 
a story which in all respects is a most characteristic 
manifestation of English habits, and not the least so 
in his modest carelessness about the lady's mistake, 
and his thoughtful care to protect her against the 
consequences of her blunder. 

19 



CHAPTER XIII, 

"NOBILITY AND GBNTEY." 

The word " gentleman " is peculiarly English. In 
other languages it has counterparts, but not equiva- 
lents. Although its application has been widened 
even in England during the last century, the core of 
its meaning has not been changed. To this, rather, 
there have been made additions, as the suburbs have 
been added to old London ; but the city is the city 
still. It is in the English of England only that the 
word has this inner steadfastness ; for, as I have had 
occasion to say before, when writing upon another 
subject, in "America " this word is entirely without 
meaning unless we know the person who uses it ; 
and generally, too, we must know the occasion of its 
use and the persons before whom it is spoken. 

A gentleman is properly a man of gentle, or gen- 
teel, birth and condition ; and this sense remains 
fixed in the word in England, although it has there, 
besides, other varieties of meaning and of use, as it 
has in the United States. When the gentlemen of 
the county are spoken of, or the gentlemen of Eng- 
land, not every man is meant, nor even every re- 
spectable, educated, and decently behaving man. 
There is implied a certain condition in life, a certain 
social position, which may or may not be accompa- 
nied, but which generally is accompanied, by a certain 
degree of wealth. But an English gentleman in his 



"NOBILITY AND GENTRY." 291 

completeness is mucli more than tliis, even if he is 
lord of thousands of acres upon which his forefathers 
have lived for centuries. Earl Dudley, writing to 
the Bishop of Llandaff in 1821, said of Mr. Stuart- 
Wortley (a political opponent) that on an occasion 
of much public importance he " spoke as became a 
great English gentleman ; " and the Emperor Nicho- 
las said that to be an English gentleman was his 
highest ambition. Now both the earl and the em- 
peror had in mind something much more than the 
visible position of a man whose forefathers had been 
" spacious in the possession of dirt." It was an idea of 
a man of independence, of probity, of a high sense of 
honor, of courage, of personal dignit}^, of good breed- 
ing, and of some knowledge of the world and of books. 
The ideal English gentleman adds all these to the 
position which is given him by his birth and his es- 
tate; and it is because it is acknowledged that, in 
theory at least, gentle birth in England, and the con- 
dition of life by which gentle birth is usually accom- 
panied there, tend to foster all those fine qualities of 
manhood, and because they are expected of a man in 
that position, that the word " gentleman " has come 
to be, of all words that can be applied to a man, the 
most gracious and the most comprehensive of all that 
is admirable and lovable and of good report, and that 
it has come to mean something that is not always 
found under the coronets of earls or the crowns of 
emperors. 

A complete English gentleman is thus one of a 
class composed of the most admirable and enviable 
men that can be found or imagined. It is not in 
human nature that the whole of a large class, or even 
the great majority of a large class, should be men of 



292 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

such completeness ; but sucli is the model which the 
man aspiring and honestly striving to be an English 
gentleman has before his mind's eye. 

Besides this name and notion of the individual gen- 
tleman, there is in English, for the class or body of 
which he is one, a name, a word, which has neither 
counterpart nor equivalent in any other tongue, — 
gentry. This word means, first, the condition in life 
of a person gentle by birth and breeding ; as when 
Mrs. Page says to Mrs. Ford, in regard to Falstaff's 
love-making, " And so thou shouldst not alter the 
article of thy gentry." Next, and as now most com- 
monly used, it means the whole body of those who 
are distinguished from people below them in rank by 
being of acknowledged gentle, or (to use again an old- 
fashioned word) genteel, birth and condition, and 
from those above them by not being noble according 
to the English rating of nobility. For in England 
nobility is a dearer possession and is more charily 
bestowed than it is in other countries that have an 
established aristocracy. English literature is thorny 
udth slighting allusions to French and Italian counts 
and German barons; and the sharpness is not the 
mere sprouting of prejudice or of arrogance. 

In England nobility means very much more than 
it does on the continent of Europe. Not that Eng- 
lish nobility is more ancient, more important in his- 
tory, or more splendid in associations than the nobil- 
ity of France, of Spain, of Italy, or of Germany. On 
the contrary, any one of the latter countries can show 
a roll of nobles who, in the antiquity of their titles, 
the grandeur of their positions, the importance of 
their actions, and the vastness of their possessions, 
far surpass the existing nobility of England, which, 



"NOBILITY AND GENTRY." 293 

with few exceptions, is comparatively of recent ori- 
gin and of minor historical dignity. The superior- 
ity of English nobiUty consists, first, in the fact of 
its limitation to peers of the realm, who have a seat 
and a voice in the House of Lords ; and, next, in that 
this rank and position are the accompaniments, the 
tokens, the splendid witnesses, of large landed pos- 
sessions and correspondent political and social in- 
fluence. 

An English nobleman is a great landlord. The 
tillers of thousands of acres, the dwellers of half a 
dozen or a dozen of villages, occupy their land and 
their houses by his sufferance, — because they pay 
him rent. The exceptions to this rule are so few 
that they are of no significance. Macaulay and Dis- 
raeli are the two most eminent examples of compara- 
tively landless men who have been ennobled in Eng- 
land. For Marlborough and Wellington great estates 
were bought. And as to Macaulay and Disraeli, it 
may be safely assumed that if they had had children, 
or expectation of children, they would not have been 
made peers. Peerage merely personal and not hered- 
itary is scouted by the House of Lords, — hardly less 
by English commoners ; and an hereditary lordship 
without an income to support the dignity, and with- 
out landed property, is abhorrent to Englishmen, or, 
what is worse, ridiculous. 

In the history of England, one fact is remarkable 
in regard to its social aspect : there has never been 
that hatred of the nobles by the common people 
which has been so often manifested in other coun- 
tries, and which in other countries has been the cause 
of so much political disturbance. The common peo- 
ple of England have always been proud of the no- 



294 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

bles ; and they may even yet be said to be proud of 
tliem. The liberals, the very radicals, are opposed to 
nobility rather in a theoretical way. I did not hear 
a word among the lower classes and the lower-middle 
classes of disres|)ect toward the nobility as a class, or 
of dislike of noblemen as nobles. 

It should be said, however, that I saw less of the 
lower-middle class, that is, of small shop-keepers and 
of artisans, than of any other, — much less than I 
saw of the peasantry and of the corresponding classes 
in the towns. This is natural. A stranger, not in 
the condition of the former, is by force of circum- 
stances thrown among the upper-middle classes, and, 
if he happen to have made such acquaintances, among 
people of rank. Among the farmers and the peas- 
antry he may go if he will ; but dissimilarity of habits 
makes intercourse with the classes just above them 
constrained and without interest, and even access to 
them difficult. And these people, — the lower-mid- 
dle class, — notwithstanding their great numbers, are 
of the least importance in the organization of English 
society. They have no apparent influence upon it, 
and do not represent it in any way. This will be 
apparent from the consideration of the fact that they 
furnish neither private soldiers nor officers to the 
army, and, with very rare exceptions, no scholars to 
the universities, no members to the learned profes- 
sions, and it need hardly be said, with exceptions of 
like rarity, no members to Parliament. 

This lower-middle class, however, shares with the 
lower classes — the lowest — a feeling toward the 
aristocracy which is the result of a peculiarity in 
the constitution of English nobility, — a peculiarity 
which is as old as England itself. The commoners 



"NOBILITY AND GENTRY." 295 

of England have never been overridden by an army 
of nobles. In other countries all the sons of noble- 
men have been and are noblemen, and the land has 
swarmed with landless counts and barons, who as- 
sumed the bearing and had the privileges of nobles, 
who held themselves aloof from all intercourse with 
those of inferior birth, and disdained to give them- 
selves to any useful occupation. It is not so in Eng- 
land, and, for centuries at least, it has not been so. 
There the son of a nobleman of the highest rank is 
a commoner before the law ; and, except by courtesy, 
he has neither title nor privilege. He has the ad- 
vantage of his connection, which is of course very 
great, and which gives him position and opportuni- 
ties the value of which can hardly be overestimated. 
But before the law he is only a commoner, like a 
shop-keeper or an artisan ; and any one of these may, 
if he will, enter upon the unequal contest with him 
for any of the good things of life, or even for its high 
jjlaces. And unequal as the contest is, men from 
the lower classes have risen, as we all know, to the 
highest places in the English social scale, — to the 
bench, to bishoprics, to the woolsack, to the peerage. 
It is the consciousness of this possibility, the con- 
sciousness of the limitation of nobility and its privi- 
leges, the consciousness of the established rights and 
recognized power of the commons, which has kept 
the nobility of England so long in its eminent and 
(with allowance for evils and defects almost inevi- 
tably consequent upon an aristocracy) its admirable 
position. English landlords are generally respected, 
.«^often liked, and not rarely loved by their tenantry. 
English noblemen are looked up to and treated with 
willing defei'ence by all below them in rank, unless 



296 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

by their own conduct they forfeit respect and defer- 
ence. No Englishman hates them because they are 
noble. 

Because, howevei-, there are no nobles in England 
except the peers, the members of the House of Lords, 
it does not follow that there is no other aristocracy. 
An English gentleman — using the word in its proper 
English sense, already set forth — is noble. The 
gentry of England correspond to the petite noblesse 
of other countries which have an aristocratic society. 
Many an English gentleman, a mere commoner, 
whose forefathers have been commoners time out of 
mind, is tenfold a more important personage in every 
respect than hundreds of Continental counts and bar- 
ons are. He has birth of which he is as honorably 
conscious, perhaps as proud, as any count or baron of 
them all ; he bears arms which his forefathers have 
borne for centuries ; and, more than all, he lives in 
the house and is lord of the acres which have been 
in his family for generations. In the observation of 
English society, it must be constantly borne in mind 
that, although only peers are noblemen, the English 
gentry are a kind of nobility, and that in any other 
country having an aristocracy they, or at least the 
greater part of them, would be ranked as nobles. 
Mr. Stuart-Wortley, whom Lord Dudley wrote of as 
a great English gentleman, was soon afterward raised 
to the peerage as Lord Wharncliffe. By this he 
gained a step in rank ; but he hardly gained in im- 
portance in Yorkshire, where his family had been 
seated as great English gentlemen for five centuries. 
He was rather made a peer because of that very im- 
portance, and because of his course in Parliament. 

The present nobility of England, as I have before 



"NOBILITY AND GENTRY." 297 

remarked, is not an old nobility. Very few English 
peers bear titles which have been in their own fami- 
lies more than three hmidred years.^ This is through 
no fault of theirs ; nor is it by reason of any inca- 
pacity of England to breed a grand and enduring 
race of noblemen. But nobility is, after all that may 
be said, only a matter of hereditary landed wealth, 
and of the importance and the opportunities given by 
such wealth. Therefore, where inheritance fails, no 
less than where wealth fails, nobility, dependent upon 
the union of the two, is extinguished. The noble 
Norman possessors of England, and sach Englishmen 
as they had gradually admitted to their order, killed 
each other in the Wars of the Roses. If they had 
been "Americans," and each party had regarded the 
other as " Indians," they could not have more thor- 
oughly improved each other off the face of the earth. 
Consequently, the Tudor kings of England had to 
make an almost new nobility. But it was not until 
the second Tudor king, who was so afflicted, with 
wives, took into the possession of the crown all the 

1 This has striking illustration in the fortunes of one very great and im- 
portant barony, that of Northumberland. The recent Dukes of North- 
umberland have assumed the name of Percy ; but their familj' name is 
Smithson. A great Yorkshire baronet, Sir Hugh Smithson, married the 
heiress of the Northumberland estates, and was invested with the title 
which had lapsed for lack of a male heir. A Yorkshire gentleman spoke 
to me with some disapproval of the assumption of the Percy name by Sir 
Hugh, who he said was "just as good as the Percies," — his OAvn name, 
by the bye, ended in son, which is a sign of the Danish origin of many 
families in the North of England. What he said was measurably true, in- 
deed ; because the family into which Sir Hugh Smithson married were 
themselves not really Percies. The very Percy of Chevy Chase was not 
a real Percy; the family of the original Percies having come to an end 
about a century after the Conquest. And in fact these Percies never were 
Earls of Northumberland. The real family name of Henry Percy, who 
was created Earl of Northumberland in 1377, was De Louvaine ; a gentle- 
man of that name, a younger son of the Duke of Brabant, having married 
the heiress of the fourth Baron Percv and assumed her name. 



298 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

land of the abbeys and monasteries throughout the 
kingdom that the new royal family had on hand a 
good stock of the material for new noble-making. It 
must be confessed that they were not allowed to be 
slack in the labor of their vocation. Would-be no- 
blemen fell upon their monarch like robbers upon 
an unsinging traveler. Favorites, courtiers, soldiers, 
eminent law^'crs, asked for land and for titles, for 
abbeys, for priories, for manors. They begged for 
them ; they importuned, they intrigued, for them ; 
they offered themselves souls and bodies in exchange 
for them. The lands and the houses most of them 
got, and many of them got the titles. Such a swarm 
of human harpies was never let loose upon a country 
as that which ravaged England from 1540 to 1600. 
It is to this rapacity, this gathering of the vultures 
over the carcass of the Roman church, that most of 
the oldest noble families in England owe their pos- 
sessions and their peerages. Some of those highest 
in rank owe their coronets to the efforts made by 
that estimable monarch, Charles II., with the aid of 
Barbara Palmer, Louise de Qu^rouaille, and Nell 
Gwynn, to increase the nobility of the kingdom. 
Those three ladies (the first two were made duch- 
esses, respectively, of Cleveland and of Portsmouth, 

poor Nelly remaining simply "the Protestant " 

which she declared herself upon a memorable occa- 
sion) did their best to prevent the race of dukes from 
dying out in England ; and verily their representa- 
tives have done likewise unto this day. 

Many more modern noble houses owe their rank 
to the needs of Sir Robert Walpole and other minis- 
ters for votes in the House of Lords. Many peerages 
were bought, outright, from James I. and his sue- 



"NOBILITY AND GENTRY." 299 

cessors. Nor has the fashion of getting them by- 
some such influence entirely gone out, it would seem, 
even in the present day. Baron Stockmar tells of 
an application to him by a man eminent in the lit- 
erary world, who offered hira a vei^y large sum of 
money if he would support his petition to be made a 
peer. The baron gave the application such a recep- 
tion as it deserved. A man in his position in the 
court of Henry VIII., Edward IV., Mary, James I., 
or the earlier Georges would have taken the bribe, 
and perhaps have obtained the title. ^ Clarendon, 
who recorded what he knew, tells us that even poor 
Charles I. in the extremity of his distress, and Charles 
II. when in exile during the Commonwealth, were 
tormented by importunities for titles. It is not thus 
that the untutored mind imagines the growth of an 
old nobility. But it is thus that the greater part of 
what is called the old nobility of England came into 
being. To this rule there are some admirable and 
many respectable exceptions, to specify which would 
be both superfluous and invidious. 

Admitting, however, that the origin of few — com- 
paratively few — noble houses in England could be 
remembered by an honorable man with pleasure, 
does it follow that the English nobility is to be re- 
garded and estimated from the point of its origin ? 
I think not. The ancestors of most of these noble- 
men got their lands and their lordships in the man- 

1 Here is the story as it is told in the Memoirs of Baron Stockmar, vol. 
i. p. Ixxv: "A rich Englishman, an author and a member of Parliament, 
called upon him one day, and promised to give him ^10,000 if he would 
further his petition to the Queen for a peerage. Stockmar replied, 'I will 
now go into the next room to give you time. If npon my return I find 
you here, I will have you put out by the servants.' " 

Was there in Stockmar's time (1830-1850) more than one man made a 
peer who was rich, an author, and a member of Parliament? 



300 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

ner which was the fashion of their day. The matter 
■would not be at all bettered if the old Norman nobil- 
ity had survived. In the eleventh century the fash- 
ion of getting lands and lordships was by conquest; 
in plain words, by forcible robber}?^. Then the great 
man was the strong man. In the condition of society 
at that time, it was inevitable that the strong should 
take and keep. Dngdale ^ quotes from the record of 
an old trial, or examination, in which a certain baron 
of Norman descent is asked by what title he holds a 
certain manor. Whereupon produxit in curiam gla- 
dium suum antiquum et evaginatum^ etc., — he pi'o- 
dviced in court, unsheathed, his ancient sword, — and 
said that this was his title ; that his ancestors had 
come to England to conquer it for themselves and 
for their children, and that they had conquered it, 
and that their children meant to keep what their 
fathers had taken. Plain speaking, but the simple 
truth. These men got their manors, in virtue of 
which they were summoned to Parliament as barons, 
by seizing them violently, slaying or driving out 
their old owners, and holding the land by force of 
arms. Those of some hundreds of years later got 
theirs by the arts of courtiers, by favoritism, by im- 
portunity, by intrigue, or as soldiers or lawyers, in 
reward for services which would not be thought very 
admirable by Englishmen of to-day, or even perhaps 
tolerable, unless they were performed in India or in 
Africa. Some of those of a century or so later got 
theirs because some half dozen women bore illegit- 
imate children to a king of England ; those of yet 

1 Or perhaps Camden. It is many years since I read the passage, and I 
have not the book now, nor time to look it up. I am quite sure as to the 
passage, and it makes little difference whether the authority is Camdeu or 
Duffdale. 



" NOBILITY AND GENTRY." 301 

another century because the)^ served the ends of an 
unscrupulous prime minister. 

However this may be, it happened long ago ; and 
the present fact to be considered is that their de- 
scendants are in possession — legal possession — of 
the lands and the titles. This being the case, they 
must be regarded, and they will be regarded, as to 
their estates and their rank, just as if they had 
bought the one with money, and won the other from 
a grateful king and people by an exhibition of all the 
ennobling virtues in the service of their country. 
As to personal character and conduct, it is they, not 
their forefathers, who must be judged by the stand- 
ards of to-day. What does it matter to an anxious 
mother that the inan proposing for her daughter is 
descended from a pretty unmarried actress ? It is 
not unlikely that among his married ancestresses 
there were women far less estimable than she in 
every way ; and the present fact is that he has forty 
or fifty thousand acres, and is a duke, and that he is 
just as likely to be a decent man and a good and lov- 
ing husband as if all his foremothers had been she- 
dragons of chastity. Of what moment is it to his 
friends, his political associates, his tenantry, how his 
ancestor got his title and his lands two hundred or 
three hundred years ago, or what were the personal 
traits of that ancestor's character ? Hardly more 
than whether his ancestor was tall or short, or 
whether his lady-mother's nose was snub or aquiline. 
He has full possession of his rank and his estates, 
and it is not his ancestor or ancestress whose per- 
sonal character concerns us, and who is to be tried 
by our moral standards. If we are to go into the 
origin of titles to possession which are centuries old, 



802 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

we slaall oust more tlian half the peoples and govern- 
ments of Europe and America. A consideration of 
these facts may modify the views of some who seem 
to think of nobility as if it were born full-grown out 
of the chaos of the dark ages, and of others who re- 
gard every nobleman as a robber and an oppressor, 
because he did not buy his estate at an auction. 

The relative degrees of rank in the English no- 
bility, and the position of the members of noble fam- 
ilies and of commoners who bear titles, are so fre- 
quently misajDprehended by people in general, and 
even misrepresented by accomplished writers, that I 
shall venture to set them forth succinctly, even at 
the risk of seeming to offer needless instruction to 
many of my readers. 

The various ranks of noblemen now in England 
are, beginning at the lowest, baron, viscount, earl, 
marquess, and duke. Every peer is a baron, and 
every baron is a peer. The House of Lords is, and 
has always been, an assemblage of the barons of 
England. A baron being in the old feudal sense of 
the word a man who is lord of certain manors, and 
who, upon the summons of his sovereign, must take 
the field at the head of a body of retainers, the title 
is a generic one for noblemen of all ranks. Thus 
Magna Charta was extorted from King John by cer- 
tain barons ; but they were the most important and 
powerful noblemen in the kingdom. A man sum- 
moned to Parliament by writ was summoned as baron 
of a certain lordship in land which gave him his title, 
or one of his titles ; and a man who in modern days 
is raised to the peerage is made a baron, whatever 
other and higher rank may be bestowed upon him. 
But the title baron is never used in England in ad- 



" NOBILITY AND GENTRY." 303 

dressing a peer. On the Continent it is used in 
speech and in writing ; and barons are baroned from 
morning till night by every person who addresses 
them, not exclusive, I believe, of such citizens of the 
Republic of the United States of America, male and 
even female, as are obliged to endure the company of 
a nobleman. In England the word used is simply 
"lord; " and this is applied to all peers below the 
rank of duke, except in formal addresses or other 
documents, or " in printf when there is some reason 
for particular distinction. 

The next step in nobility is to the rank of vis- 
count, which, however, is not an old title in English 
nobility, and, like marquess, is not regarded as par- 
ticularly English. A nobleman raised from the rank 
of baron to that of viscount still retains his baron- 
age. Thus if a gentleman were raised to the peer- 
age as Baron Stratford, he would be called Lord 
Stratford ; and if he were afterwards made Viscount 
Avon he would be called Lord Avon, but he would 
still be Baron Stratford as well as Viscount Avon. 
This adhesion of the inferior titles (except in cer- 
tain cases of limitation by patent) continues as the 
nobleman rises, if he should rise, to the highest rank ; 
and if our supposed example were made Earl of Ken- 
ilvvorth, then Marquess of Coventry, and finally 
Duke of Warwickshire, he would be baron, viscount, 
earl, and marquess, as well as duke ; and he might 
also be a baronet ; and all his titles would be men- 
tioned in an account of his rank in the peerage. 

Earl is the oldest of English titles, and of all titles 
is the most thoroughly English. There are barons, 
viscounts, marquesses, and dukes in other countries, 
but earls only in England. I am sure that I cannot 



304 "" ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

be alone in finding a peculiar charm and attrar-tive- 
ness in tlie position and title of an English ear' He 
has the rank which was once the highest in t j land, 
and which is still high enough to be of gre? . distinc- 
tion, while it is not one which must be kep^ up with 
a great deal of splendor, and his title is one peculiar 
to his country. I know that if I were an English 
earl I should not receive with any great thankfulness 
an offer to make my wife into a " female markis," 
especially if my earldom w^^e one around which was 
a cluster of pleasant historical associations ; for ex- 
ample, the earldom of Warwick, or that of Derby. 

Marquess, which means lord of the marches (that 
is, borders), is a title unknown in England before 
1385. The first English marquess, Robert Vere, had 
an Irish title. Marquess of Dublin, wdiich was be- 
stowed upon him by Parliament at the pleasure of 
Richard II. It was rarely bestowed afterwards, until 
the last century. Its chief advantage seems to be 
that it affords the crown, or the crown's advisers, a 
degree of nobility to which they may raise an earl 
without making him a duke. Dukes are intended to 
be very rare birds indeed. To be raised to a duke- 
dom, a man must be enormously rich, and have very 
great connections. A marquess, although next him 
in rank, may be a long way behind him in these re- 
spects. » 

Duke, the title of the highest rank next to that of 
the princes of the blood royal, is the third in antiquity 
in England as a title of honor and dignity. As the 
nanie of an office, dux^ it was used in very remote 
times all over Europe ; but the first English duke was 
Edward the Black Prince, whom his father made 
Duke of Cornwall : whence the oldest son born to 



" NOBILITY AND GENTRY." 305 

the reignino; monarch is born Duke of Cornwall, but 
not Prince of Wales, the latter title being afterward 
conferred upon him. 

A duke is the only English noble who is visually 
addressed by his title. It is proper, in addressing 
him at the beginning of a conversation, or after a 
break in it, to say, for example, " Duke, will you be 
kind enough ? " etc. ; at other times, it is almost 
needless to say, he is addressed as " your grace," in 
the use of which title much want of discretion and 
self-respect may be shown. But no other nobleman 
is commonly addressed by his title, as marquess, earl, 
or viscount. All from baron to duke are addressed 
simply as " my lord ; " and in the use of " your lord- 
ship," although it is legitimate, there is a peril sim- 
ilar to that in the use of " your grace," 

This phrase, "your grace," is called "the style" 
of a duke, who is formallj^ addressed on letters and 
otherwise as His Grace, the Duke of, etc. The style 
of a marquess is the Most Noble ; that of earls, vis- 
counts, and barons, the Right Honorable. But, ex- 
cept in the case of a duke, who is supposed to be 
a very awful and inapproachable person, friends, in 
writing to each other, usually omit these styles, and 
address the marquess or earl of , or, more gener- 
ally, use simply Lord. 

This is an end of nobility, except that nobility 
which comes of office, as in the case of bishops, the 
lord chancellor, and certain judges, which, except in 
the case of the lord chancellor, is not nobility at all. 
All other titles are merely what are called courtesy 
titles borne by commoners, or titles of knighthood, 
the bearers of which are also commoners. The son of 
a duke, a marquess, or an earl bears the second title of 

20 



306 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

his father, by the courtesy of the crown. A duke, as 
I have ah-eady remarked, is also an earl, a Yiscount, 
and a baron, and generally, but not always, a mar- 
quess ; a marquess is also an earl and a viscount and 
a baron, and so on. The eldest son of a duke bears, 
therefore, as his courtesy title, that of his father's 
marquessate or earldom. For example, the Marquess 
of Hartington is a commoner, just like John Smith; 
and he is a member of the House of Commons, which 
he would not be if he were really a marquess. But 
by courtesy he is called by the second title of his fa- 
ther, the Duke of Devonshire. The Duke of Nor- 
folk's eldest son, however, is not by courtesy a mar- 
quess, but an earl, — Earl of Surrey ; because the 
dukedom of Norfolk is older than the day when the 
fashion of making English marquesses came into 
vogue, and his second title is Earl of Surrey, which 
he would not have made marquess for any sum of 
money that could be offered him. The younger sons 
of dukes and marquesses (although of course com- 
moners) are called Lord, and their daughters Lady. 
Thus the eminent statesman who for forty years and 
more was known to all the world as Lord John Rus- 
sell was only a commoner, and would have been de- 
scribed in a legal document as the Honorable John 
Russell, commonly called Lord John Russell. His 
" lordship " came to him merely by courtesy, because 
he was a younger son of the Duke of Bedford. He 
was made a peer in his own right, as Earl Russell. 

It should be mentioned, however, that there may 
be and have been lords in the House of Commons 
who are noblemen, bearing their titles not by court- 
esy, but by inheritance or patent. These are Scotch 
or Irish peers. To sit in the House of Lords, a peer 



"NOBILITY AND GENTRY." 307 

must be a peer of Great Britain, or of tlie realm, as 
it is called, unless lie is chosen as a representative 
peer from Scotland or Ireland. All English peers 
are peers of Great Britain ; but Scotch and Irish peers 
are not so, unless in addition to their Scotch and 
Irish peerages they have an English peerage. Thus, 
the Duke of Argyll, a Scotch peer, sits in the House 
of Lords as Baron Sundridge and Hamilton in the 
peerage of Great Britain, and the Marquess of Drog- 
heda, an Irish peer, as Baron Moore of Moore Park, 
Kent. Lord Palmerston was an instance of a noble- 
man's being in the House of Commons. He was third 
Viscount Palmerston in the peerage of Ireland ; but 
he was not only English (he was of the family of Sir 
William Temple), but the most English of English- 
men. He was elected member for the Isle of Wight 
in 1807, and sat in the House of Commons for nearly 
fifty years, during which time he was twice prime 
minister. He was one of the most powerful of Brit- 
ish subjects : he made peers of Great Britain, and 
bishops and archbishops ; but he himself never rose 
in rank, nor even became a peer of the realm, but 
passed his political life in the Commons. 

The presence of a Christian name after the title 
Lord is in itself evidence that the bearer of the title 
is not a nobleman, not a peer, and also that he is a 
younger son of a duke or a marquess. And so also 
Lady Marys and Lady Sarahs are not peeresses, but 
the daughters of earls, marquesses, and dukes. For 
the sons and daughters of viscounts and barons bear 
no courtesy title, but are styled Honorable. This 
title Honorable, which is made ridiculous in the 
United States by its bestowal upon every man who 
fills, or has ever filled, one of our million public 



308 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

offices, however petty, is little used in England, ex- 
cept as a token of noble descent ; and it pertains, as 
I liave remarked, as well to women as to men, which 
is also true of Right Honorable in case of peeresses 
or the daughters of dukes and marquesses. This is 
shown by an old poetical satire, " The Metamorpho- 
sis of the Town," 1731, upon the fancy costumes 
worn then on the Mall : — 

"Look, yonder comes a pleasant crew 
With high crowned hats, long aprons, too. 
Good, pretty girls, I vow and swear; 
But wherefore do they hide their ware? 
Ware? what d' ye mean? What is 't you tell? 
Why ! don't they eggs and butter sell ? 
Alas, no y' are mistaken quite. 
She on the left hand, dressed in white, 

Is Lady C , her spouse, a knight; 

But for the other lovely three 
They all Eight Honourables be." 

This Lady C , although she was my Lady, was 

a commoner, and the wife of a commoner. A knight 
baronet, or a simple knight, who may be an alder- 
man, a painter, or a musician, is called Sir, and his 
wife is called Lady, just as any peeress is, under the 
rank of a duchess. 

Baronets are peculiar to England. They are com- 
moners; and yet they have an hereditary title. The 
title was originally sold by James I., who invented it 
for the purpose of raising money by its sale to quell 
a rebellion in Ulster ; wdience all baronets bear the 
red hand of Ulster in their shields of arms. 

Knighthood is not hereditary ; because it is always 
conferred upon the bearer for services or qualities 
personal to himself. It was originally a very high 
honor, and one which noblemen did not always bear, 
but, bearing, always greatly prized. The Black 



"NOBILITY AND GENTRY." 309 

Prince himself, tlie heir apparent to the throne, did 
not "win his spurs," the token of luiighthood, until 
the battle of Cressy.^ If conferred upon the field of 
battle, knighthood was a great distinction, and gave 
its beai'er precedence before other knights not so cre- 
ated. But gradually it sank in estimation, because 
of the reasons for which it was bestowed. In Shake-' 
speare's time it was given " on carpet consideration," 
and from that time it became more and more com- 
mon, until now it is the lowest and least regarded of 
all tokens of social distinction. It has, however, one 
remnant of its original value : it belongs to the per- 
son, and must be won. But one of the acknowledged 
gentry of England would not receive with pleasure a 
pi'oposal that he should be knighted, except, indeed, 
in the form of being made, for conspicuous merit in 
the public service, a Knight Commander of the Bath ; 
for that a simple gentleman should be made a Knight 
of the Garter is quite inconceivable. The garter is 
reserved for noblemen of high rank ; and during the 
last century and a half it has been worn by many 
dull and sordid and even base creatures, who had no 
claim to it but large possessions and great parliament- 
ary influence. 

Baronetcy, however, and even simple knighthood 
are prized for one reason, — precedence. There is in 
precedence a fascination which even the sturdy man- 
liness of the so-called Anglo-Saxon mind seems un- 
able to escape. To have the right — a right recog- 
nized on all formal occasions — to take place before 
some one else is one of the most highly-prized privi- 

1 I have found so many intelligent persons in error upon the point that 
I am sure I shall be pardoned for mentioning that Edward of Woodstock 
was a fair, blue-eyed man, with light hair. It was his armor that was 
black. 



810 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

leges of rank. It cannot be regarded as the object 
of a magnanimous ambition ; and to see how much it 
is thought of tends greatly to diminish respect for an 
aristocratic organization of society. The disputes in 
regard to it which are recorded here and there in his- 
tory ; the bitter heart-burnings about the right to cer- 
tain seats or places in court ; the painful considera- 
tion of the grave question as to whether a royal or a 
princely personage is to take two steps forward or 
three in receiving a certain guest, or in what exact 
order some half a dozen others are to be placed at ta- 
ble, or which of two ambassadors is to be received 
first, and with what ceremonies, and so forth, and so 
forth, seem to be the magnification of the merest 
frivolity and fiddle-faddle. Courtesy is the flower of 
good-breeding, the rich, fine bloom upon the fruit of 
the highest culture ; but between courtesy and eti- 
quette the difference is so great that they have really 
nothing in common. Courtesy is perennial, immortal ; 
but etiquette is but an artificial manufacture of so- 
cial pedantry, and changes not only from generation to 
generation, but sometimes from one year to another. 

The etiquette of precedence in England is a puz- 
zling and intricate subject, which is in the hands of 
heralds and masters of ceremonies. It is regulated 
with an elaborate minuteness which is ridiculous, I 
am sure, even to many of those in whose favor it is 
established. That the royal family should have pre- 
cedence of all others ; that dukes should have preced- 
ence of marquesses, marquesses of earls, and so 
forth ; and that a line should be drawn somewhere, 
from below which people cannot go to court, seems 
sensible and right in an aristocratically constituted 
society. But when members of the same family are 



"NOBILITY AND GENTRY." 811 

broken up into classes of precedency, and separated, 
and we are told that the eldest sons of dukes take 
precedence of earls, while the younger sons of dukes 
(all the sons being commoners, it should be remem- 
bered) come after earls and the eldest sons of mar- 
quesses : and when we find a specific place assigned 
to the eldest sons of the younger sons of peers, and 
another much lower to their brothers, the younger 
sons of the younger sons of peers, we must feel a 
little pity for grown men who are pleased at walking 
about in such filigree go-carts. ^ 

. The complication resultuig from this minute dis- 
section and distribution of precedence has its liveliest 
ilkistration in the case of the female members of 
noble families, who generally take this matter of 
precedence most to heart. Thus, all the daughters 
of a peer have the rank of their eldest brother dur- 
ing the life-time of their father. All the daughters 
of a duke, therefore, rank as marchionesses ; and this 
rank they retain, unless they are married to peers, in 
which case of course they take rank as peeresses. 
But if some of them should thus become countesses, 
viscountesses, or baronesses, and one of them should 
marry a commoner, whether a baronet or a coach- 
man, she, as a duke's daughter, would still rank as a 
marchioness, and, although a commoner, take preced- 
ence of her peeress sisters. Her marriage to a com- 
moner does not lower her in the scale of precedence, 
or raise him. Tittlebat Titmouse thought that when 
he married the Lady Cecilia he would be Lord some- 
thing or other ; but he found that it was not so ; and 

1 And j'et Carh'le (ells us in his Reminiscences that Mrs. Wordsworth 
was an insignificant little woman, chieflj^ remarkable for her anxiety in 
regard to her proper seat at table, — her precedence ! 



812 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

other Titmice liave been similarly disappointed. And 
can we forget " The Countess of Warwick and Mr. 
Addison " ? 

Precedence in England extends even into the serv- 
ants' hall and the kitchen. This is manifested every 
morning. At family prayers all the house servants 
attend, just as they used to do here in families in 
which that domestic discipline was kept up. A row 
of chairs is placed for them in the bi'eakfast room, 
and they enter and take tlieir seats. The head of 
the house reads prayers and the lesson of the day, or 
some other part of the Bible. I observed that the 
servants in each house always entered in the same 
order, the housekeeper marching at the head of the 
line, and taking the seat farthest from the door. And 
it was, I am sorry to say, rather funny to see some 
dozen or more of them pound solemnly in and plump 
stolidly down upon their seats. After prayers are 
over, they of course rise and go out. But I saw that 
they did not do this in reverse order, the one nearest 
the door going out first, as would have been natural 
and convenient. They rose, stood in a line, and then 
the housekeeper went out first, followed by the serv- 
ant next her ; and thus the line doubled upon itself, 
the file telling itself off, so that the one who entered 
the room last left it last. The order of entering and 
leaving was the same. 

On speaking of this, I was told with smiles that 
precedence was strictly observed among them ; that 
in the servants' hall the housekeeper took the head of 
the table, the butler the foot, and that the servants, 
upper and under, had places strictly assigned to them 
according to the dignity of their positions. What is 
the order of their sitting or of their going the lord 



"NOBILITY AND GENTRY." 313 

of precedence only knows ; but I suppose that the 
my lady's maid sits on the right hand of the butler, 
and my lord's own man on that of the housekeeper. 
At dinner they sit together at the common table 
down to cheese ; then the upper servants only rise 
and go in state to dessert in the housekeeper's room. 
The upper servants are those who have servants un- 
der them ; an upper servant never wears livery. 
When visitors at a great house bring servants with 
them, the gnests in the servants' hall are formally 
assigned places strictly according to the rank of their 
master or mistress. I learned also that servants do 
call each other by the titles of their masters and mis- 
tresses, and that this incident of " High life Below 
Stairs " is no fiction. A nobleman told me, with muda 
enjoyment of the joke, that when he was going about, 
a young heir expectant, and by courtesy Viscount 

, he often heard the servants at the country-seats 

of his friends address his valet by his own title. He 
also heard something which he thought much "jol- 
lier : " — 

There was a certain lady, a dowager peeress, no 
longer young, but rather youngish, who had an own 
man, a confidential servant, who was her factotum. 
One day, she being on a visit to his house, my friend 
heard some of his own servants call out to this man 
by his mistress's title, and ask him to go somewhere 
or do something with them ; to which he replied with 
a languid air, " Oh, I can't. I 've got to take my 
old woman into the city to look after the stock-mar- 
ket You know the old girl likes that sort of thing." 

He intimated with much glee that if Lady , who 

was very airy and coquettish, had heard the words 
" old woman " and " old girl " she would have taken 



314 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

measures to have that man speedily poisoned. He 
told the story with so much mischief in his eye that 
I wonder that he refrained from telling it to the lady 
herself ; but that would have been inhospitable and 
unkind ; and that he should be either unkind or in- 
hospitable it is quite impossible to believe. 

This same gentleman also once unconsciously illus- 
trated to me one trait of English aristocracy which 
is in many respects admirable, — independence of the 
opinion of others. He is of a family eminent for 
ability as well as for rank. When he was in New 
York, some years ago, I had the pleasure of knowing 
him well, and one day I took him to see Miss Hos- 
mer's statue of Zenobia. After we had looked at it 
for a while in silence, lie turned to me, and quietly 
said, "Who was Zenobia? I don't know." An- 
other gentleman of the same rank passing a day or 
two at my house, I had occasion to tell him that he 
would do well to change his drawers for a thicker 
pair on a walk we were about taking. " Drawers I " 
he replied, " I never wear them ; " at which I was 
somewhat surprised ; but he continued, " People tell 
me that it 's not a nice habit not to wear drawers ; 
but I can't see that it is n't nice ; and as I don't like 
them, I don't wear them." Although I could not 
sympathize with my guest in his taste, I could not 
but like his independence of Mrs. Grundy. But 
what matter is it to a man who is an earl and a dep- 
uty-lieutenant of his county, with two seats, a town- 
house, half a dozen livings, and the control of a seat 
in Parliament, if Mrs. Grundy does whisper and 
sniff ! He can afford to set her and her cackling at 
naught. The immunity of such a position has, on 
the other hand, its evil tendencies with evil men ; but' 



" NOBILITY AND GENTRY." 315 

it leads, on the whole, to independence of personal 
character, which is an English trait. 

Outside the circle, and just below the rank, of the 
recognized gentry of England is the large, respect- 
able, and all-powerful body known as the upper-mid- 
dle class. Of this there is of course a considerable 
number who are members of the various professions ; 
but the greater number are merchants or manufact- 
urers, or are connected with trade in some way. 
Those of them whom I had the pleasure of meeting 
did not in any way justify the pictut-es of them that 
we find in plays and novels, which, according to my 
observation, are not truthful representations of a class, 
but caricatures of individuals. I found these gen- 
tlemen, as a class, so intelligent and so well informed 
that I should hesitate in placing the merchants of 
New York, or even of Boston, as a class, in compari- 
son with them. Many of them live in great luxur)^ 
and with a splendid display ; but very many who 
have wealth live, although in the height of comfort 
and elegance, more modestly, as, in their opinion, 
becomes their station. One of these, who lived in 
a cluster of spacious, elegant villas, with fair grounds 
about them, said to me, as we strolled past a very 

large house, " Mr. has offended the taste of his 

neighbors. He has built himself entirely too great 
a house for a man who does n't keep horses. A 
o;entleman in England is a man who has horses and 
hot-houses." Now he liimself had neither horses nor 
hot-houses, although he could well afford to have 
both ; his plate bore a crest to which his right was 
undoubted, and he was a man of importance in an 
important place ; besides which, he was certainly 
one of the best read and most thoughtful men I 



816 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

ever met, and a man of sterling character and biglily 
respected. But, being all this, he yet recognized 
with content his well-defined place in society. 

This cheerful recognition of place, even by those 
who are inferior, seemed to be remarkable. I spoke 
one day to a lady of high rank in regard to what I 
had heard from some of her friends of the feeling of 
certain members of the royal family about the mar- 
riage of the Princess Louise. "To be sure," was her 
reply, " how could it be otherwise ? I suppose they 
feel very much as we should feel if one of our own 
rank should marry an upper servant." And this of 
the heir of MacAllum More, whose rank and family 
had been far above her own for centuries !^ It illus- 
trated the same point that one day a peer replied to 
his wife, who said that a certain estate that was for 
sale would hardly find a buyer at the price asked for 
it, " Oh, my dear, you may be sure that the price will 
be paid by some opulent shop-keeper." If my host 
had brought out his coronet and set it solemnly on 
his head, he could not have more impressively as- 
serted his rank ; and the succession of O'ps in the last 
words of his reply seemed to give him great pleasure. 

1 We may be sure, I think, that the lady had not in mind the following 
passage from Heywood's King Edward IV., in which the situation and the 
feeling expressed by her, and almost her very words, will be found. The 
Duchess of York is censuring her son for marrying a woman so far be- 
neath him in rank as the Lady Elizabeth Gray, and the Queen reminds her 
new mother-in-law that, like the Marquis of Lome, she comes of an ancient 
ducal house. 

" Duchess. There 's no such difference 'twixt the greatest peer 
And the poor silliest kitohen-maid that lives 
As is betwixt thy worthiness and hers. 

Queen. I do confess it : yet my lady York, 
My mother is a duchess, as you are, 
A princess born, the Duke of Bedford's wife." 

(Act I. Sc. 1.) 



" NOBILITY AND GENTRY." 317 

They lingered upon his lips, and were uttered with 
unction.^ 

Briefly, although the government of Great Britain 
is practically republican, and although the complaint 
there is, that year by year their institutions are be- 
coming more and more "Americanized," rank and 
precedence are still the coveted prizes and the para- 
mount influences of English society. 

English peers are, on the whole, a noble race of 
men, worthy of the honor in which they are held. 
So far as my observation extended they are notably 
simple in their habits of life and unassuming in their 
manners, not narrow in their sympathies, and con- 
scious of the duties imposed upon them by their 
position. True, they stand by their order ; but do 
we not all stand by ours, even when it is disorder ? 
Of course there are some within the pale of nobility 
who might better be without it, — men, and women 
too, who disgrace their rank by frivolity and by bru- 
tality. An eminent churchman, himself of a noble 
family, speaking to me of the brutality of some no- 
blemen, said of a certain earl of ancient family, 
recently deceased, that he was a perfect reproduc- 
tion of the rudest of his ancestors, "just like Front 
de Boeuf." And on the other hand one meets among 
the gentry and in the middle classes men who in char- 
acter, in dignity, in ability, and in public spirit would 
seem to deserve to have no superiors in rank, and to 

1 A year and more after the publication of this paragraph in the At- 
lantic, the following passage appeared in an article in the Satwday 
Review : "Social dignity is greatly valued in England, so valued that we 
shall not be ridiculous if we bring our argument to a crucial and absurdly 
extreme test. It would be worth the while of any millionaire with two 
millions to give one for Knowsley, or Longleat, or Dalkeith Palace, or 
Floors Castle, with the lands attached, even if the lands did not return one 
shilling per annum interest on the money." Five millions of dollars ! 



318 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

be more worthy of lordship than many of those who 
are born to titles. But it is also to be said that there 
are many sad examples of that crass snobbishness and 
toadyism which might be regarded as the peculiar 
fruit of an aristocratic society, if we did not find the 
same snobbishness and the same toadyism in society 
in which wealth suddenly acquired, and often ill-got- 
ten, is the only recognized title to distinction. But 
notwithstanding the unadmirable origin of many peer- 
ages and the vicissitudes of families, the English no- 
bleman of to-day is not unfrequently a fair repre- 
sentative of his ancestor, who was thus described by 
an old French poet, Ronsard, — 

" Autour de son palais je vy ces grands milords, 
Accourt, beaux et courtois, magnanimes et forts." 

So early did Frenchmen call an English lord a 
milord. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

TAURUS CENTAURUS. 

The umbrella that I bought in Burlington Arcade 
came to an untimely end. Going to pay for it, I 
had taken it in my hand, not because of rain or 
that the sky was lowering, but because one always 
carries an umbrella in England, whether one uses it 
or not. Indeed, a Lancashire friend of mine, who 
was with me when I bought another umbrella in Liv- 
erpool, said, as I was picking and choosing, " Find a 
good stick ! An umbrella serves chiefly as a walk- 
ing-stick. Get a good one for that, and you 're all 
right." As I walked away from the Arcade, at the 
very first crossing, — . at Sackville Street, I believe, 
— I was suddenly conscious of a horse and a rushing 
of wheels. I had just time to draw back when a 
hansom cab dashed past me so close that I smelled 
the horse's breath. The great wheel caught my um- 
brella, which was twisted out of my hand in a twink- 
ling, like a foil from the hand of an unwary fencer, 
and thrown upon the ground, where the wheel passed 
over it. The cabman took not the slightest notice 
of me as he turned the corner and dashed down Pic- 
cadilly. I picked up my wounded water-shed, and 
returned with it to Burlington Arcade, where it was 
found that, although stick and ribs were uninjured, 
every gore of the silk was cut through in two or three 
places, and that never having been used it would yet 



320 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

have to be completely new covered. I could not but 
remark the plainly unaffected concern of the sales- 
woman from whom I had bought it. As she opened 
gore after gore, and found them all destroyed, her 
countenance fell, and she looked ruefully in my face, 
as if she and not I had lost twenty-five shillings, and 
as if she, not I, would have to pay for a new cover. 
I remarked her manner, although it was undemon- 
strative and perfectly simple. It was one of many 
manifestations of like feeling from trades-people to- 
ward their customers to which I was witness in Eng- 
land. 

My adventure with the cab, happening on the sec- 
ond day after that of my arrival in London, gave me 
timely warning of a fact which I found to be both 
characteristic and important, — that in England the 
man on horseback is master of him that goes afoot. 
He who walks is expected to give place to him who 
rides and to him who drives. He is, for the mo- 
ment at least, the inferior person, the subject of the 
mounted man, whose convenience or whose pleasure 
he is expected to consult at loss of his own pleasure, 
or of his own comfort, or of his property or his limbs, 
or, it would almost seem, of his life itself. A sign 
or token of this in London, and if I remember rightly 
in other cities, is the contrivance called a " refuge," 
which is placed at intervals more or less convenient 
in the roadway of the street. These refuges are 
formed of stout stone or iron posts "^bout a yard high, 
which stand some two or three feet apart, half-way 
from curb to curb, making a sort of pen or pound, 
into which persons who are timid or not agile may 
tiee as they cross the street, and where they may 
rest in safety until the way is clear for them to com- 



TAURUS CENTAURUS. 321 

plete their crossing without the risk of broken bones. 
If it were not for this contrivance there are many- 
women, and, I suspect, some men, in England who 
would never get quite across some of the thronged 
thoroughfares. The man who undertook to swim 
across a mill-pond, and who, having got half-way 
over, instead of going on, turned round and swam 
back again, might, if he had. found a place for a mo- 
ment's repose and reflection, have seen that it was as 
well to go forward as to turn back ; and thus the 
timid wayfarer in the streets of London is enabled to 
pause amid the clattering of hoofs and the whirl of 
wheels, and, taking courage from offered opportunity, 
complete his half-made transit. The refuge seemed 
to me a very characteristic thing. It is a sign of 
that thoughtfulness of the personal safety and com- 
fort of the general public which is a much more con- 
stant and impelling force in England than it is in the 
United States ; but it is also a sign of that deference 
to the horse and to his rider or driver which is one 
of the most striking of English traits.^ 

1 The following paragraph appeared in the London World some months 
after the first publication of this chapter: — 

" It has been calculated that the yearly average of persons killed by 
accidents in the streets of London is greater than the annual total of per- 
sons massacre'd on all the railways of the United Kingdom. During the 
last decade the victims of the thoroughfares of the metropolis have reached 
an aggregate of 2195, while in 28,071 cases more or less serious injuries 
have been inflicted. These statistics are startling, and they signify in 
reality more than at first appears. Only the known instances are enu- 
merated under the published categories. There is a considerable per- 
centage of casualties which does not find its way into print; and when 
it is said that last year the killed and wounded in the London streets 
amounted to 236 and 3699 respectively, it must be remembered that the 
estimate is reduced to a minimum." 

This is astonishing, and reveals a condition of things peculiar to Eng- 
land. Even in the thronged streets of ill-governed New York there is not 
the hundredth part of this number of street casualties. 
21 



322 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

My horseless English friend who told me that in 
England a gentleman was a man that had horses and 
green-houses was nearly right in his jocose defini- 
tion. But the first half of it is the more significant. 
The importance of the horse in England, and the im- 
portance which he gives to his possessor — even his 
temporary possessor — is not easily overrated. The 
feeling from which this springs is traditional, and 
comes down from the time when, in peace as well 
as 'in war, nobles, gentlemen, and men-at-arms were 
mounted men, and rode over the common people. 
When coaches came in, their use was for a long 
time, of necessity, confined to the gi^eat and wealthy ; 
indeed, they were such a sign of high social position, 
that among inferior persons many even of those who 
could well afford them did without them, lest they 
should subject themselves to the charge of presump- 
tion. It is amusing to read Pepys's debates with 
himself on this point ; his doubts being not whether 
he could afford a coach, but whether his position was 
such as warranted him in appearing before the pub- 
lic with his wife in his own vehicle. It need hardly 
be said that a private carriage is everywhere an evi- 
dence of a certain degree of wealth in the owner; 
but although the grandson of the man who first set 
up his carriage in New York is yet living, the pos- 
session of such a " leathern conveniency " conveys to 
the public mind nothing of that feeling which still 
lingers in England in regard to the man who (for 
pleasure, not for business) has a " stable," great or 
small. Mrs. Gilpin, on her only holiday in twenty 
years (how cruel she was to poor John in saying 
" these twice ten tedious years " !), did not have 
even her hired chaise and pair brought to the house, 



TAURUS CENTAURUS. 323 

but had it stayed three doors off, " lest folk should 
say that she was proud." 

It is partly because of a great liking for horses, 
but partly also because of the survival of this feeling, 
although in a much modified form, that the first de- 
sire of an Englishman, when prosperity begins to 
come to him, is to be the possessor of a horse. 
Chiefly, his desire is to ride ; and if he is a weak- 
minded, pretentious creature, he sometimes makes 
false pretenses of having ridden or of being about to 
ride. In England the stirrup is the first step to 
gentry. The phrase "in the saddle," as an expres- 
sion of readiness for work, is a peculiarly English 
phrase. We use it because we are of English blood 
and speech ; still it has not with us the full per- 
tinence and significance which it has in England. 
An English " gentleman " who cannot ride reason- 
ably well, and who does not ride, is an exceptional 
sufferer from some hapless disability, physical, moral, 
or pecuniary. Englishwomen not only walk more 
than their American cousins do, but they ride very 
much more. Ten to one of them, compared with 
women here, are accustomed to the saddle. Girls as 
well as boys begin to ride early ; indeed, before they 
begin to learn to dance. 

I was walking one morning in the weald of Sussex, 
with a friend, to call at the house of a kinswoman of 
his. And, apropos of my subject, this gentleman, 
although he had a stable on such a scale that, seeing 
it first by chance in the twilight, I thought that it 
was another country house, and although he was a 
grandfather, proposed as a matter of course that we 
should walk the three miles between the two houses. 
Notwithstanding it was a warm September day, I was 



324 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

very glad that lie did so, and that I did not lose one 
bright moment of the smiling beauty of that morn- 
ing, or one of the ever-varying phases of the view- 
across the v^^eald to those grandly reposing downs, 
that couch like headless sphinxes before the sea. 

We had walked about two miles, when we saw, a 
few hundred yards off, what might at first have been 
taken for a great doll mounted upon a great dog com- 
ing rapidly toward us. It was a little girl riding a 
shaggy-maned pony, whose back was not nearly so 
high as a donkey's. Little miss, although she cer- 
tainly could not have been more than eight years 
old, came tearing along at a pace that turned back 
her short skirts in a flutter, and made her long curls 
stream out in the air behind her. " Oh, uncle," she 
broke out, as she pulled her pony up to a sudden jog- 
jog-jog, which I thought must pitch her out of the 
saddle, but which did not, — "oh, nncle, what an 
awfully nice pony this is ! He goes like lightning. 
Papa says he thinks there is n't a match for him in 
all the w^eald," — pronouncing the last word, by the 
way, quite perceptibly as two syllables, yet with the 
suggestion that this was only the effect of a full and 
rich enunciation of the letter I. Her eyes were danc- 
ing, her cheek glowed ; and after a kiss and a few 
more hurried words from her fresh little mouth, off 
she dashed again, at the same headlong pace. Soon 
we met the maid who Avas out in attendance upon 
her, and to whom, as I found, it was her wont to ride 
back, after she had gone about a quarter of a mile, 
and take a fresh start. 

Although she had a pony and a maid, the girl's 
dress was as simple and as uncostly as it could pos- 
sibly be consistently with cleanliness and comfort. 



TAURUS CENTAURUS. 325 

Nor was her father a man of wealth. My host, who 
was his landlord, told me that the rent of the pretty- 
house, at which we soon arrived, and which looked 
much like a villa at Brookline or Dorchester Heights, 
and some thirty acres of park land, was but two hun- 
dred and forty pounds a year, and the furniture and 
the upholstering were far less gorgeous than those 
which tire found in the houses of thousands of New 
York men whose daughters never saw a pony, and 
who could no more keep a seat upon such a tempest- 
uous little beast as that than they could ride a whirl- 
wind. But per contra, as their fathers might say, 
their toilettes would, in their splendor, altogether 
eclipse the homely garb of this unmistakable little 
gentlewoman. Ponies like this one of course we all 
know ; but I saw more of them during my visit to 
England than I had seen in New England and in 
New York in all my life. 

The number of ladies that one constantly sees in 
England on horseback, in the parks, public and pri- 
vate, and on the rural roads, is a distinguishing feat- 
ure of the country. They ride in parties, with gen- 
tlemen, of course, and often alone with a groom in 
attendance, but oftenest, it seemed to me, in pairs, 
with the inevitable tidy groom just out of ear-shot 
behind them. Ther.e is not a more characteristic rep- 
resentation of English life, nor one more pleasing to 
a man's eye, than the sight of two fair, healthy Eng- 
lish girls, well mounted, their blue riding-habits full 
of health and their faces full of good-nature, canter- 
ing easily through a wooded park. I remember 
meeting such a pair on a visit to Hall, in Lan- 
cashire. I had chosen to walk, as I often did, and I 
met these young ladies in the park, about three quar- 



62b ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

ters of a mile from the house. They were walking 
their horses, and I had opportunity to make good 
view of them. Their faces were beaming with the 
delight of life ; the indefinable charm of the spring- 
tide of existence seemed to radiate from them, and to 
take me within its influence ; they sat their horses 
with an ease and grace which Englishwomen do not 
always show on foot ; and their dark blue habits 
made, with the bright bay coats of their black-maned, 
black-hocked horses, sharply shown against the rich, 
green sward, a combination of color which was grate- 
ful to my eye. It was a sight worth seeing for itself, 
and the most English thing that could be seen in 
England. I saw that they were the daughters of the 
house, or at least that one of them was, and raised 
my hat as I passed them, and got a pretty blush and 
half a bow in return. After I had walked on a while, 
I thought that I might venture to turn and look again 
at such an attractive spectacle ; when to my surprise 
I found that they had anticipated me in my exhi- 
bition of inquisitiveness, in which their groom stol- 
idly took no share. I could not see them blush again, 
but I could see their white teeth as they smiled 
at this mutual detection of our common curiosity. I 
am sure that should they chance to see this page 
they, who added so much to the pleasure of my visit 

to Hall, will pardon this reminiscence of our 

meeting. 

The Egyptians mummied all sorts of sacred brutes, 
including bulls, cats, and crocodiles. If Englishmen 
should ever take to embalming beasts, I am sure that, 
notwithstanding the national name and the place 
which roast-beef holds in English song and story, 
they would pass by the bull, and swathe the defunct 



TAURUS CENTAURUS. 327 

horse in muslin and spices. For if the horse be not 
a gocl in England, at least the cult of the horse is a 
sort of religion. There are tens of thousands of Eng- 
lish gentlemen who have horse on their minds during i 
the greater part of their waking hours. The condi-/ 
tion of the animals ; their grooming ; the cut of their 
tails and manes ; the way in which they stand, or 
step, or stride ; the fashion of their harness ; the 
build, the look, the dress, of coachman and groom, — 
these are matters to them of deep concern, of uneasy 
anxiety. And this is so not once a year, or once a 
quarter, or once a month, but every day, and two or 
three times a day ; every time,, indeed, that they ride 
or drive. 

Nor do I mean only those who are called "horsey " 
men, gentlemen drivers of mail-coaches and the like, 
who are grooms in everything except taking wages, 
and some of whom, I was told, will carry their coach- 
manship so far as to take a "tip." Apart from these, 
there is a very lai'ge class for whom the perfection, 
to the minutest point, of their equestrian "turn-out" 
is a question of the major morals. When one of 
this class feels sure that his horse, his " trap," and 
his groom will bear the criticism of his friends and 
rivals, the ineffable air of solemn self-sufficiency with 
which he sits the saddle or the box is very amusing. 
These men criticise each other's equipages as women 
criticise each other's dress, as pedants criticise un- 
pedantic scholarship. Indeed, in England there is 
a pedantry of the stable. 

In a lower condition of life there is of course less 
expense and less display, but not a whit less of the 
hankering after horses. On the roads in the suburbs 
of London, a frequent sight in the afternoon, when it 



328 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

does not rain, is a sort of light cart or buggy with a 
smallish horse driven furiously by a coarse man, who 
sometimes lias a coarse companion, male or female. 
1 rarely took an afternoon's walk within five or ten 
miles of London without meeting a dozen of these 
Jehus. They tear along the road at a mad pace, 
and evidently expect everybody and everything not 
bigger or stronger than they are to make way for 
them. When I remarked upon this one day to a 
friend who was walking with me, and who lived in a 
little suburban town, he told me that these were 
mostly small tradesmen or farmers of "horsey" pro- 
pensities, who used in this way at every opportunity 
the horses which in the morning were used in their 
business. A light cart or buggy takes the place in 
England of our ugly contrivance, the trotting w.agon ; 
and I must confess that it seemed to me much the 
more comfortable vehicle. Certainly, its drivers ap- 
peared to enjoy themselves much more than our 
trotting men do. They do not sit in stolid silence, 
pulling at the reins with gloomy determination. 
They give the horse his head, and drive with a free 
rein and an easy hand, and chat and laugh as they 
bowl along the smooth, well-packed road. Indeed, 
these fellows appeared to me really to have more 
pleasure in their horse exercise than their superiors 
had. They were without the conscious, anxious look 
of the others, and did not seem to sit in fear of crit- 
icism. And yet I have no doubt that they did crit- 
icise each other as they met or passed, and made 
remarks upon each other's " tits," or harness, or 
driving. For when an occupation or an amusement 
becomes a cult this is inevitable. But I never saw 
them race. If they were overtaken or passed by one 



TAURUS CENTAUEUS. 329 

of tlieir own sort, they kept their pace and seemed 
to enjoy their drive for the drive's sake, without 
running the risk of taking off each other's wheels, 
and without anxiety upon the important question 
whether they " did " the last mile in 2.40 or 2.39, 30. 

English riding did not, however, awaken in me all 
the admiration which I had expected. The horses 
and their riders were indeed in all respects admi- 
rable ; nor did the boldness and self-possession of 
the latter in the saddle, and their calm mastery of 
the situation, leave anything to be desired, at least 
so long as the pace was not very rapid. But the 
English seat did not seem to me easy, or even quite 
safe ; although it must be so. And yet to see men 
rising to the horse, as they commonly do, and alter- 
nately sitting in the saddle and standing in the stir- 
rups, awakened in me a feeling of anxiety and dis- 
tress, which, superfluous as it must have been, I 
found not infrequently reflected in the countenances 
of the riders. Accustomed as I was to see men who 
were accounted good horsemen sit in the saddle or 
on bareback as if they sat in a chair, although the 
horse was at full career, it did not please me to 
see riders bobbing up and down so that a good ar- 
tilleryman could send a round shot between pig-skin 
and buck-skin at every stride. In this feeling, how- 
ever, I must have been wrong. English riding is 
far beyond such criticism as I could bring to bear 
upon it. The matter must be one of mere habit and 
fashion. 

I had not the good fortune to see a hunting field, 
— only some cub-hunting ; but even that was made 
a pretty sight by the horses, and the light crimson 
coats of the riders, and the action of the hounds. 



330 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

But I did not mourn ray loss greatly in this respect ; 
for I shall not hesitate to sink myself very low in the 
estimation of some of my Yorkshire friends by con- 
fessing that the only interest a fox-hunt would have 
for me would be the show, and that, fond as I am of 
riding, I should enjoy it in any w^ay better than in 
risking my neck in the chase of a little red beast 
with a bushy tail. The excitement and the pleasure 
of hunting tigers, or bears, or wolves, or boars, I can- 
not only understand, but sympathize with heartily ; 
but that twenty or thirty grown men on horseback 
should follow a pack of hounds in chase of a little 
creature about as big as a cat seems to me a proceed- 
ing so essentially absurd and preposterous that I can- 
not think of it with patience. Still worse, and with 
the addition of most inhuman (I wish that I could 
say unmanly) cruelty, seems the coursing of the hare. 
That men should go out with hounds to find pleasure 
in the flight, in mortal terror, of the most timid and 
harmless of dumb creatures is to me quite inexpli- 
cable. Shooting hares is one thing, coursing them 
quite another. I know that there are no wild beasts 
left in England but hares and foxes, and that field 
sports are delightful and invigorating. If country 
gentlemen must have field sports, and there are only 
foxes and hares left for them to hunt, I suppose that 
foxes and hares must be hunted. But it would seem 
that men might get open-air exerci'se and excitement 
in a more humane and reasonable way. 

As to fox-hunting, however, with all that we read 
about it in English novels and other books, we have 
hardly a just appreciation of its importance as an 
English "institution." It also is a religion. It comes 
next to the British constitution and the Church of 



TAURUS CENTAURUS. '" ^ 

England. Hunting men talk of the sport with a 
solemn earnestness which is infinitely amusing to an 
" outsider." To hunt well, or, as the phrase there is, 
to ride well to hounds, is an accomplishment, like the 
mastery of an art or of a science, or a like distinc- 
tion in literature. I do not believe that there are ten 
men in any thousand in England, whatever their suc- 
cess or their distinction in other respects, who would 
not prize, if they could attain, the added distinction of 
being good fox-hunters. Hunting has even a moral 
significance. Years ago an English lady, a Yorkshire 
woman, writing to me of Louis Napoleon, after tell- 
ing me this and that of him in terms of admiration, 
added, " And he rode well to hounds ; and somehow 
if a man rides well to hounds he is pretty sure to be 
a good fellow." I could not see the sequitur. But 
perhaps if I had been born and bred in Yorkshii-e I 
could have discovered the connection between sfood- 
fellowship and a good seat in the saddle, — between 
a sound heart and bold and wary riding. 

To hunt something to death or to shoot it seems to 
be a sort of necessity with the " average " English- 
man, with whom it is a creed, an article of faith, that 
certain animals are created by a benign Providence 
to be hunted and killed in a certain w^ay.^ For the 

1 "It is a melancholy fact that English people are apt to be intensely 
bored with themselves on summer afternoons. They cannot spend the 
whole of every day in killing something, even after the 12th of August; 
and when they are neither slaving, eating, nor sleeping, the fever attacks 
them with great virulence In the country- we are brought up to con- 
sider two occupations as comprising the whole duty of man. These are the 
destruction of life and playing at ball; and when we are deprived of the 

former resource we have no choice left but the other You may even 

have a Prime Minister, an archbishop, a monsignor, and a free-thinking 
contributor to a monthly magazine staying in 3'our house, and yet your 
entertainments will give no pleasure whatever to the average Englishman 



A=,^ ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

way in which it is done is all important. A man 
who would shoot a fox is little better than a heathen; 
far worse than a publican and a sinner. And the 
feeling pervades all classes. In "Joseph Andrews," 
as the hero, his sweetheart, and Parson Adams are 
on the road near Squire Booby's, a hare, pursued by 
hounds and huntsmen, interrupts a passage of love 
between the two younger folks, and Fanny exclaims, 
" with tears in her eyes, against the barbarity of 
worrying a poor innocent, defenseless animal out 
of its life, and putting it to the extremest torture 
for diversion." Fanny would have protected the 
hare, but he fled from her. The end is told in the 
following paragraph : — 

" The hounds were now very little behind their poor, 
reeling, and staggering prey, which, fainting almost at every 
step, crawled through the wood, and had almost got round 
to the place where Fanny stood, when it was overtaken by 
its enemies, and being driven out of the covert was caught, 
and instantly tore to pieces before Fanny's face, who was 
unable to assist it with any aid more powei'ful than pity ; 
nor could she prevail on Joseph, who had been himself a 
sportsman in his youth, to attempt anything contrary to the 
laws of hunting in favor of the hare, which he said was 
killed fairly." 

This passage is remarkable, first, because it shows 
that, although Fielding was the son of an English 
squire and soldier, his good sense saw and his tender 
heart felt the cruelty of the sport which he describes ; 
although, with an eye to the prejudices of his fox and 

unless j'ou give him something to kill or a game at ball." — Saturday 
Review, September 14, 1878. 

This brings to mind the story of the Massachusetts butcher, who, wak- 
ing on a verj^ fine night, exclaimed to his spouse, " Miss , dew look 

at that beautiful moon! I mus' git up an' go to slarterin." 



TAURUS CENTAUEUS. 333 

liare hunting readers, he puts his own thoughts into 
the breast of a young woman and expresses them by 
her lips. Next, we see that this careful delineator of 
contemporary manners makes Joseph something of a 
sportsman in his youth, although he had been brought 
up in the humblest condition of life. Finally, the 
hero, whom Fielding sets before us as a model of all 
that is good and kind and gentle, refuses to protect 
the hare, even to stop the tears of his sweetheart, but 
lets it be torn to pieces before her eyes, because, ac- 
coi'ding to the laws of hunting, it was killed fairly. 
The establishment of laws, which it is unsportsman- 
like if not ungentlemanly to violate, but according to 
which a poor dumb, timid creature may be driven 
Avild with terror and to death's door with fatigue dur- 
ing a very appreciable part of its little life, and at 
last torn to pieces for the amusement of those who 
make the law, may not be peculiar to England; for 
the laws of venery have prevailed in all lands ; but it 
is safe to say that in none are they so religiously ob- 
served as they are in England, and that their appli- 
cation there to hares is a peculiarity due probably to 
the lack of larger game. The combination of a strict 
regard for the laws of hunting with an utter disre- 
gard of the sufferings of the hare, resulting in a kind 
of implication that the poor beast itself should be 
quite satisfied if it were chased and worried and torn 
to pieces " fairly," is an exquisitely perfect manifes- 
tation of a feeling, not confined to field sports, that 
pervades society in England. This feeling is em- 
bodied in the phrase, so common there that it has 
become cant, " May the best man win." It would 
seem that it is in the spirit of this phrase that John 
Bull looks upon any strife. He says not. May the 



334 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

right man win ; not, May the right put down the 
wrong; but, Right or wrong, may the best man 
win, — " best " meaning strongest and boldest. The 
very sympathy which he shows sometimes for the 
weaker, and on which he prides himself, is but an- 
other manifestation of this feeling. If the little fel- 
low can go in and win, and kill his antagonist, or beat 
him, " fairly," let him do it ; may he do it ! " Hoo- 
ray for the little 'un ! " But the little one, for all 
that he is little, may be utterly in the wrong ; he may 
be so foully and so aggressively in the wrong that he 
ought to be trodden out of existence, like a venom- 
ous creature. But let him show "pluck" (favorite 
word in England, but hideous, as Professor Newman 
has said), and he is sure of John Bull's cheer, if 
he were as wicked as Satan and as venomous as a 
viper.i 

This feeling has its spring in a quality of the John 
Bull nature (by which, be it remembered, I do not 
mean the best or even the characteristic English nat- 
ure) to which I am extremely loath to apply the 
only word that will describe it, — brutality. And in 
brutality I imply nothing of the wild-beast nature, 
nothing of cruelty. I mean an admiration of brute 
force, a deference to it, a contented recognition of it 
as the rightful title to the possession of all things. 
Strength must indeed be the ultima ratio ; and civil- 
ization means that strength is on the side of society. 

1 I remember a case in which I was tempted to interfere, because I 
thought a big fellow was bullying a little one ; and indeed he was beating 
him soundly. It turned out that the little fellow was an ungrateful, ma- 
licious thief, and that the beating he was getting was from a benefactor^ 
whom he had robbed and vilified, and who was thrasliing him in vain to 
make him restore the stolen propertj'', which was afterwards found on his 
person. He was so determined to keep his booty that he took the thrash- 
mg without flinching, and almost in silence. 



TAURUS CENTAURUS. 335 

But between the first reason and the last reason there 
is a long series of stages in which brute force may at 
least be kept out of sight. In England, however, it 
is kept constantly before men's eyes, and they are 
taught to worship it from very children. The little 
boy goes to school to run the errands, pick up the 
balls, and black the shoes of the big boy ; to be tyr- 
annized over by him ; to have his ears boxed by 
him ; to be flogged by him, — not merely to be 
" licked " in a boyish fight, but to be solemnly 
flogged, whipped with a rod, or " tunded " with 
staves as punishment. "I had the honor," writes 
Thackeray, " of being at school with Bardolph before 
he went to Brasenose ; the under boys used to look 

up at him from afar off as at a god-like being 

When he shouted out, ' Under boy ! ' we small ones 
trembled and came to him. I recollect he once called 
me from a hundred yards off, and I came up in a tre- 
mor. He pointed to the ground. ' Pick up my 
hockey stick ! ' he said, pointing towards it with the 
hand with the ring on. He had dropped the stick. 
He was too great, wise, and good to stoop to pick it 
up himself." A small boy may free himself from tyr- 
anny by beating his tyrant " fairly " in a fight. But 
this is only another manifestation of the worship of 
brute force. He is free not because it is right that 
he should be free and strength is on the side of right 
in his little society, but simply because he has had 
the "pluck" and the luck to beat his tyrant.^ 

1 " If a boy persistent!}' shirks fagging, he is sent for by the prefects, and 
a hint given to him that he had better come and fag in future. After one 
or perhaps two warnings, he would get a " licliing," There is a very lit- 
tle fagging except this, and what there is is done in no regular way. For 
instance, when a prefect wanted his study swept out, he would catch any 
smal' boy that was hand}' to do it ; in consequence of which the fags 



336 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

It is commonly sought to dignify this feeling by 
showing that it is no res^^ecter of persons. But what 
a story is that of the boy who, on his first appear- 
ance at an English public school, was asked by the 
bully head-boy, " Who are you ? " and on his answer- 
ing, " I am Lord , son of the Marquess of ," 

was greeted with the reply, both in words and in ac- 
tion, " Well, there 's one kick for the lord and two for 
the marquess ! " I have heard this story told by men 
of rank as well as by middle-class men, with an ex- 
pression of delight in it as a manifestation of English 
manliness. " Did the boy good, sir, — took the non- 
sense out of him." But what sort of nature must 
that be which needs, and takes kindly to, one kick 
for itself and two for its father, by way of taking the 
nonsense out of it ! And what a school of manners 
is that which thus welcomes a stranger, young, weak, 
friendless, ignorant yet of his surroundings ! I for 
one refuse to believe that the English nature requires 
this brutal discipline to bring it to that manliness 
and dignity and that solicitous consideration for oth- 
ers which it exhibits in its highest perfection. I be- 
lieve that this worship of brute force is merely a tra- 
ditional cult preserved in a spirit of Philistinism, and 
that without it more Englishmen would attain a full 
development of all the highest English virtues and 



rather eschew the study side of the quadrangle between breakfast and 
' second lesson.' .... 

"The chief punishments are 'extra school,' lines, flogging by head- 
master, and 'prefect's licking.' This latter is not such a great matter 
for ordinary cases, such as shirking fagging ; but for any grave offense it 
is serious. There is always an appeal to the head-master. In case of 
grave offenses by a 'prefect,' he would be degraded or sent away, but 
not flogged. All the Upper Vlth are ex-officio prefects, and some of the 
Lower Vlth, by appointment at the head-master's discretion, to supple- 
ment their numbers." — London Examiner, August 9, 1879. 



TAURUS CENTAURUS. 337 

graces than now do so with it. Were it otherwise, in 
discriminating between the two peoples I should be 
obliged to say that brutality was one of the things 
which Yankees left behind them in the old home. 

Nest to the horse in England is the gun. Accus- 
tomed as we are to see Englishmen who have crossed 
the Atlantic to visit America, and whose idea of that 
tour of observation seems to be to go two thousand 
miles westward into the wilderness among Indians 
and frontiersmen to shoot, we yet have no adequate 
appreciation of the importance which shooting as one 
of the grand occupations of life has in the minds 
of tens of thousands of Englishmen. Hunting and 
shooting in England are not mere recreations, forms 
of casual pleasure, to be enjoyed now and then, lei- 
sure and weather serving. In the hunting season 
hunting men are not content, as I found on talking 
with some of them, to go out with the hounds once 
or twice a week. They hunt three or four times a 
week, and even every day, except Sunday, if possible. 
I wonder that they except Sunday. For if a man in 
the country may work in his garden, and a woman 
in London may cry water-cresses on Sunday, out of 
church hours, I can see no reason why these gentle- 
men should refrain on that day from laboring in their 
vocation. Their vocation and calling it surely is. It 
is the business of their lives ; and to hear them talk 
about it one would imagine that it had the impor- 
tance of an affair of state. 

Shooting is hardly less thought of, and is more 
general because it is less costly. The pheasant, the 
partridge; and the woodcock are sacred birds pro- 
vided for solemn sacrifice. "Does he preserve?" is 
a question that I have heard asked b}^ one country 

22 



338 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

gentleman about another with as much interest and 
seriousness as if the inquiry were whether he had a 
seat in Parliament. An engagement to shoot is par- 
amount to all others ; an invitation to shoot, like an 
invitation from the President at Washington, sets 
aside all others. Euglishmen will go from one end of 
the country to another for a few days' shooting ; and 
shooting means, nowadays at least, not a morning's 
walk with dog and gun in a fine country and the 
bringing home of a few well-earned birds and rabbits, 
but mere gun-practice in a park at birds as flying 
marks. It has lost its connection with the enjoyment 
of nature and invigorating exercise. The " sports- 
men " take their stands, and the birds are roused 
from the gorse by the gamekeepers' helpers, and are 
shot down, or missed, as they come within range. 

As I was in England during the shooting season, 
I had some invitations to take my chance at the 
pheasants. But I accepted none. I could use the 
little time I had to spend there in other ways, more 
to my advantage, and also to my pleasure. As to 
shooting birds in such a business-like fashion, I would 
as soon take trout out of a tub. And that, I sup- 
pose, will be the way provided erelong for the prac- 
tice of the contemplative man's recreation. The 
next thing to it seems to be the going to a fishing- 
hotel and angling from a boat in a mill-pond. Why 
not fish and shoot by telegraph as well as in this 
way? The charm of field sport is the field, — the 
early start, the sharp, clear morning air, the sunrise, 
the walk over hill and through meadow, the country 
through which the game leads the seeker, the mid- 
day rest and luncheon with a companion or two by a 
clear, sheltered spring, whose cool water is tempered 



TAURUS CENTAURUS. 339 

by the contents of flasks wbich counteract the unmit- 
igated effect of that dangerous fluid, the renewal of 
the search for game by wood-side or brook-side, and 
the pensive walk home to a hearty dinner, a pleasant 
evening's languid chat, and a long dreamless sleep. 
Compared with this, preserve-shooting and pond-fish- 
ing are tame mechanical occupations. 

" Does your ladyship hunt ? " Sir Harcourt Courtly 
asks of Lady Gay Spanker, in the most brilliant com- 
edy of English life that has been produced in the last 
thirty years and more. " Does my ladyship hunt?" 
ironically replies that wily she-centaur ; and then 
comes that description of the hunting field, which, 
given with spirit by a pretty woman, always brings 
down the house. Lady Gay has always seemed to 
me one of the most forbidding female characters 
upon the modern stage, because she is one of the 
most unfeminine, and her hunting speech, a mere 
clap-trap deliberately set for what it always catches. 
Here, however, I remark upon her and it only in the 
way of the illustration of my subject. It need hardly 
be said that the number of hunting women in Eng- 
land is comparatively small ; but it must be positively 
lai'ge. Now while so many women hunt in England, 
it seems somewhat strange that Englishmen and 
Englishwomen should find occasion of criticism in a 
tendency which they discover in their American sis- 
ters to usurp the places and the occupations of men. 
Riding itself is not the most feminine of accomplish- 
ments. A horse's back is not exactly the place for 
which nature has fitted woman. Neither in body nor 
in soul is she peculiarly suited to the saddle. But of 
all occupations hunting belongs, on every considera- 
tion, peculiarly to man. Now " American " women 



840 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

don't bunt. I never even heard of one who hunted, 
— except for that sort of wild beast of which every 
woman hopes to capture and tame one in the course 
of her life. While this distinction in the sex obtains 
in the two countries, it seems at least perilous for the 
countrymen of the hunting ladies to be censorious on 
the point of womanliness. Nor are these criticisms 
back and forth either pleasant or profitable. The 
customs of both countries are such as have been im- 
posed upon peoples of the same race by the condi- 
tions of life in which they respectively live. Either 
transplanted to the other's soil becomes in a few years 
as if he were "native and to the manner born." I 
have no doubt that with practice John Bull might 
learn to sit still in his saddle, and thus become truly 
Taurus Centaurus. 



CHAPTER XV. 

PARKS AND PALACES. 

In the present chapter I shall record memories of 
a miscellaneous character, some of which I shall pre- 
sent just as I find them in the letters that I wrote 
home while I was in England. These will at least 
have the value and possibly the interest which gen- 
erally attaches to descriptions and relations written 
upon the spot. It should be remembered that these 
letters were written hastily, in the midst of the mul- 
titudinous avocations of a traveler (I wrote them in 
bed in the morning, and even on the railway when I 
was alone in the carriage), and were intended only 
for the members of my immediate family. But I 
give them just as I find them, only suppressing 
names. 

" I walked from Twickenham to Hampton Court. 
J. H. went with me. We had walked a few miles, 
and were skirting a brick wall, which did not attract 
my attention by being unlike other brick walls that 
I had seen, when H. said suddenly, 'Here we are! ' 
and we turned into a gateway. What a sight ! — a 
sight of trees such as I had never even imagined. I 
found myself in an avenue about two hundred yards 
broad, which stretched on before me for what proved 
to be a mile and an eighth. On either side were 
gigantic horse-chestnut trees, standing five deep at 



342 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

regular distances, which had given them ample room 
to spread. They looked as if they were a hundred 
feet high. Even as they stretched on before me into 
the distance I saw that every tree was higher than 
the roof of any dwelling-house in New York. And 
such majesty of foliage ! Thei-e is nothing finer, 
even in this country. The great avenue at Windsor 
Park is longer, but when a roadway is a mile and a 
furlong in length, what matter as to its effect at any 
one point how much longer it is or might be ! 

" This is the famous avenue of horse-chestnuts at 
Bushy Park. It is much praised for its beauty when 
the trees are in blossom ; but I was glad that I found 
it clothed only in green. There is in rural nature 
hardly anything equal to, surely no other thing quite 
like, a lane between two orchards of apple-trees in 
bloom. In tint and in perfume, the concentrated 
expression of all the beauty, material and spiritual, 
that accompanies our idea of spring finds there its 
perfect and absolute embodiment. And there is 
about the apple-tree a homeliness and a home-keep- 
ing character which make it fit to don this daintily 
beautiful and somewhat womanish garb of welcome 
to the returning year. It is not too grand nor too 
dignified to wear a chaplet of blossoms. But I have 
always felt that the horse-chestnut was far too lofty 
and elegant a creature to be beautified by floral deco- 
ration. It seems to me like sending bouquets to a 
big, bearded man. I should as soon think of crown- 
ing a statue of Washington or of Wellington with 
a chaplet of roses. Horse-chestnut trees must liave 
blossoms, or there would be no chestnuts, and the 
trees would come to an end, — just as a man who 
marries must figure in the absurd position of bride- 



PARKS AND PALACES. 343 

groom ; but I would rather see Benedick a month or 
two after the wedding, and the horse-chestnut tree 
after it has cast its blossoms. 

" When this avenue has run its mile and its fur- 
long it opens out suddenly into a circle more than a 
quarter of a mile in diameter, from which stretch 
avenues which are like transepts to a nave. In the 
midst of this circle is a vast basin with a fountain. 
Then come the lawns and the gardens around Hamp- 
ton Court palace ; the former of such closeness and 
fineness of turf that it seems as if it is the velvet 
cai'pet that should be likened to them ; and all about 
such old, old yew-trees ! The garden is made by 
formal beds cut out of the turf and filled with flow- 
ers and plants with richly colored leaves, which are 
arranged in patterns. The extent of all this is 
greater than you would imagine. There is a broad 
canal that stretches up from the Thames to a terrace 
in front of the palace. It was used in former days 
for barges that brought visitors from London. Its 
functions, but not its beauty, are now assumed by the 
railway. Old ' Ego et Rex Mens ' may have been 
a man of unbounded stomach, but beyond dispute he 
had fine taste in palaces ; for you will remember that 
this noble seat was of Wolsey's planning and build- 
ing. The first sight of the palace itself is very dis- 
appointing ; for the principal front which it presents 
shows at a glance the hand of the architect of the 
cathedral of St. Paul's ; but the part built by Wol- 
sey is very fine, — old Tudor brickwork in excellent 
preservation. The roof of the great hall — open- 
work in wood — is beautiful both in outline and de- 
tail ; but the stained windows seemed to me of dubi- 
ous date, and to be lacking in richness of tone and 
simplicity of design. 



344 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

" Almost all the royal apartments have been 
turned into picture-galleries, which contain a mixture 
of the good work of great men with not a little rub- 
bish. The Sir Peter Lelys, — portraits of the beau- 
ties of Charles 11. 's court, — about which there is so 
much talk, are poor, flimsy, meretricious things. 
Even the flesh tints, which are the best part of them,, 
are weak and washy ; and the drawing is very bad. 
The eyes are, I "think, the worst that I ever saw in 
paintings of any pretension. The shape of the eye, 
which is exactly the same in all the beauties, is much 
like that of an Assyrian statue ; and the under lids 
■would be costly if the lot were sold at a dollar a 
pound. All this is much modified and improved in 
the engravings by which these portraits are generally 
known. Notwithstanding the presence of the work 
of some greater men, I was chiefly impressed — no, 
not chiefly, but very greatly — by some heads by 
Bassano, which for strength and vitality surpassed 
any that I had ever seen, except some by Velasquez, 
and some of Titian's and Holbein's which I know 
only through copies or engravings. Perhaps I was 
the more impressed by them because the painter was 
new to me. 

" A great surprise was the portrait of Madame 
de Pompadour, by Greuse, — an exquisite painting, 
with all the signs of being a good likeness. It is full 
of life and character. But to my surprise I found 
her fair, with bright blue eyes and a retreating chin, 
— a very manifest double chin, too, although she is 
in the bloom of early womanhood. Her complexion 
is divinely fair, and her figure shows the perfection 
of womanly beauty. But I had always thought of 
the haughty, brilliant, scheming favorite of Louis XV. 



PARKS AND PALACES. 345 

as a tall, dark-eyed, dark-haired woman, with, a firm, 
well-rounded chin, and a face of great spirit ; it was 
hard to accept in place of my ideal this soft, blue- 
eyed, simple, almost rustic-seeming beauty. It was 
only one more added to a thousand lessons from 
which I should have learned before the truth that 
Shakespeare makes the disappointed Duncan utter, — 

" 'There is no art 
To find the mind's construction in the face.' 

" After we had spent a long morning in the palace 
and its grounds, we went to the Greyhound Inn, 
just outside the gates, for a little luncheon, — some 
cold beef, of which a huge joint was set before us, 
the whole of which we might have eaten, if we had 
chosen, at the same price that we paid for our not 
very moderate inroads, and some beer, of which we 
each easily disposed of an imperial pint. We were 
punctiliously served by a waiter who did not look 
like a live waiter at all, but just as if John Leech 
had drawn him. 

" The walks in the country around Twickenham 
are idyls. On Sunday evening, as the west was red- 
dening, H. and I went out, and walked three or four 
miles leisurely, returning just after sunset. It was 
like living Gray's ' Elegy.' From the old church 
towers in the distance came the chimes of bells, soft, 
sweet, irregular, making a gentle clamor. Every- 
thing is soft here ; mellow and tender upon the sur- 
face, although it may be rich and strong within. 
We talked when we first set out ; but gradually we 
gave ourselves up in silence to the enjoyment of a 
sense of harmony that stole alike through eye and 
ear, and which, like the enjoyment of all beauty of 
the higher kind, produced an almost sad, submissive 
feeling. 



346 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

" A few days afterward I took witli the same com- 
panion a walk of some twenty one or two miles, which 
led us through some of the Thames villages, Kew 
Gardens and the museums, Richmond and Richmond 
Park. We started at half past nine in the morning, 
were on our feet all the time except when we stopped 
at a little ale-house in Isleworth for a bite and a sup 
of beer, and we came in at such a pace that it was 
remarked, as we passed through Twickenham, and 
I was good for five miles more at the same pace ; 
which, as Pepys said of his dancing, I did wonder to 
see myself do, particularly when I found that I was 
as fresh as ever the next morning. Now in the at- 
mosphere of New York or New England, neither my 
companion nor myself could have done that with 
such comfort and ease, — indeed, such pleasure ; for 
we were both out of all training, not having walked 
five miles on any day within three years. 

" What we saw was greatly gratif^dng, chiefly 
owing to the Thames, which we skirted frequently 
and crossed three times. ^ Of the beauty of this 

1 One of these three crossings of the Thames was at Twickenham ferry ; 
the ferry consisting merely of a little skiff and an oarsman. The embark- 
ation, the passage, and the disembarkation occupied about one minute, 
and the fare was one penny ; and j^et it was so charming and picturesque 
an incident of that day's enjoyment that I shall never forget it. Only a 
day or two ago I happened to see at Schirmer's, for the first time, this 
song: — 

TWICKENHAM FEREY. 

" hoi ye ho 1 ho ye ho 1 who "s for the ferry ? 
(The briar 's in bud, and the sun 's going down.) 
And I '11 row ye so quick, and I "11 row ye so steady. 
And 't is but a penny to Twickenham town." 
The ferry-man 's slim, and the ferry-man "s young. 
And he "s just a soft twang at the end of his tongue. 
And he 's fresh as a pippin and brown as a berry. 
And 't is but a penny to Twickenham town. 

" hoi ye ho I ho ye ho ! I "m for the ferry. 
(The briar =s in bud, and the sun 's going down.) 



PAEES AND PALACES. 347 

river from this distance above London to its upper 
water we have no type in any one of the United 
States with which I am acquainted. At Richmond 
it is hardly as wide as the Mohawk where travelers 
usually see it ; but the land lies around it in such a 
way as to give it a certain graceful dignity. The 
banks do not so much slope as gently curve down to 
it, and everywhere they are covered with the soft, 
richly green turf which seems to be the natural 
clothing of this island. This is darkened here and 
there all along the banks by beautiful trees, singly, 
in clumps, and in rows, that are to my eye a never- 
ceasing surprise and delight. 

[Nevertheless, the notion generally prevalent about 
trees in England is erroneous. I have seen larger 
oaks and elms in New England and in New Jersey 
than I saw in England. Except some shells of 

And it 's late as it is, and I have n't a penny ; 
And how shall I get me to Twickenham town? " 
She -s a rose in her bonnet, and oh she looks sweet 
As the little pink liower that grows in the wheat. 
With her cheeks like a rose and her lips like a cherry. 
" And sure and you 're welcome to Twickenham town." 

"0 hoi ye ho 1 ho 1 " you "re too late for the ferry. 

(The briar "s in bud, and the sun "s going down.) 

And he 's not rowing quick, and he "s not rowing steady : 

You 'd think 'twas a journey to Twickenham town 

hoi 1 and ho 1 ye may call as ye will ; 

The moon is a-rising on Petersham hill ; 

And with love like a rose in the stern of the wherry, 

There 's danger in rowing to Twickenham town. 

Now the existence of this ferry and of this song is highly characteristic 
of the difference between the two countries. For centuries, ever since 
there was a Twickenham, and probably longer, the Thames has been 
crossed at that spot in just the same way; and far be the da}' when it shall 
be crossed there in any other. Hence, and because of the beauty of the 
river there, this song is possible. But here I do not know one ferry 
about which such a song could be written; not one which even the 
writer of Barclay of TJry and Barbara Frietckie could hope to make 
successfully the subject of a ballad song; nor can there ever be one. 



348 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

trunks, I saw no oak so great in girth as that noble 
tree lately cut down at Tory Corners, near Orange, 
in New Jersey, the first branches of which were like 
large trees, and which, although they w^ere rather 
less horizontal than is common with the oak, had a 
spread of more than one hundred feet. Nor did I 
see anywhere in England elms with the tower-like 
trunks and domes of green that are to be found in 
not a few New England villages. It is the multitude 
of very large trees, and the strong, rich, juicy green 
of their foliage that is so impressive. Oaks and 
elms with trunks four or five feet in diameter are 
common. They stand alone, or in ranks by the road- 
side ; they nod to you over high brick walls ; they 
gather together in great groups upon the meadows, 
where they do not push and crowd each other, but 
remain somewhat aloof with a becoming mutual re- 
spect. I soon gave over measuring their trunks ; 
early in my walks a circumference of from sixteen 
to eighteen feet became too common to attract my 
special attention.] 

" The view from Richmond Hill is of such a grand 
loveliness, like the beauty of some of Titian's women, 
that you wonder how nature could accidentally dis- 
pose forms and colors so as to give such delight to 
the eye and the mind of man ; and the moist air, 
because of the light which it holds in solution, marks 
the distances by a distinct but very delicate grada- 
tion. But of this view I have spoken before. From 
it I went directly to Richmond Park. Everything 
of note that I have seen here, excepting Stratford- 
upon-Avon, I have found more beautiful than I ex- 
pected to find it ; but in many cases it has been 
smaller. Richmond Park, however, is not only more 



PARKS AND PALACES. 349 

beautiful, but much larger, than I expected, — on a 
much grander scale. Compared with it, or indeed 
with any great park that I have seen, our so-called 
' Central Park ' at New York, admirable as it is in 
many respects, is slight and fanciful. Olmsted is the 
ablest man in his profession that I know; but even he 
cannot contend successfully with time and space and 
nature. I shall never forget the companies of great 
solemn oaks that I saw brooding over the earth in 
this park. I shall never forget seeing a gentleman 
and a lady come cantering out of a stretch of wood, 
that seemed more than half a mile off, right down 
upon us, until at about half their distance they turned 
at right angles, and we could hear them talking — 
his manly tones and her sweet, clear Englishwoman's 
voice — back and forth, but no sound of their horse's 
hoofs upon the turf ; and they were so far away that 
they looked like toys. On that stretch of sward 
there might have been a tournament of giants." 

Some requests which I have received, both in per- 
son and by letter, with regard to certain phases of 
life in England, cannot be better complied with than 
by the following extract from a letter, — which, like 
the foregoing, is a literal transcript except in the sup- 
pression of names : — 

" Now I will tell you a little — it can be but a lit- 
tle — about life in the ' great houses,' as they are 
called here. When you are asked to come to one, a 
train is suggested, and you are told that a carriage 
will be at the station to meet you. Somehow the 

footman manages to find you out. At , which is 

a little station at which few people get out, I had 



350 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

hardly left the train when a very respectable-looking 
person, not a footman, stepped up to me and said, 

' Lord 's carriage is waiting for you, sir.' The 

carriage and the footman and coachman were of 
course on the other side of the building. My drive 

from the station to took quite as long a time as 

it took me to come down by rail from London, al- 
though we went at a grand trot. The country was 
beautiful, stretching oif on both sides in broad fields 
and meadows, darkened in lines by hedges, and in 
spots by clumps of trees. The roads were veiy nar- 
row, — they seemed rather like lanes, — and this 
effect was increased by the high walls and hedges on 
either side. Two carnages had hardly room to pass 
in some places, with careful driving. Being in Lord 

's well-known carriage, I was quite in state, and 

the country folk, most of them, bowed to me as I 
went on ; and of course I followed the apostolic in- 
junction, and condescended unto men of low estate. 
And, by the way, yesterday afternoon (for a day has 
passed since I began this letter, and I am now at 

) Lady drove me through their park and 

off to , the dowager Lady 's jointure house, 

and I had the honor of acknowledging for her all the 
numerous bobs and ducks she received from the ten- 
ants and their children. So you see I shall be in 
good training when I come into my estate. When 

and where I entered the park, either here or at , 

I could not exactly make out. There were gates and 
gates, and the private grounds seemed to shade off 
gradually into the public. I know that the park ex- 
pended far beyond tlie lodge. The house at is 

very ugly. It was built by Inigo Jones, and, never 
handsome, was altogether spoiled by tasteless altera- 



PARKS AND PALACES. 351 

tions in the last century. The ugliness of English 
country houses built at that time is quite inexpress- 
ible. 

"I ought to have said that the s are in mourn- 
ing ; . . . . and it was very kind of them to invite 
me. I was met at the door by a dignified personage 
in black, who asked me if I would go up to Lady 

's room. She welcomed me warmly, said that 

Lord had been called away for a few hours, and 

offered me tea from a tiny table at her side. And, 
by the way, you are usually asked to come at a time 
which brings you to five-o'clock tea. This gives you 
an opportunity to rub off the rough edge of strange- 
ness before you dress for dinner. Lady 's own 

room was large and hung with tapestry, and yet it 
was cosy and home-like. The hall is large and square, 
and the walls are covered with old arms. The stair- 
case is good, but not so grand as others that I have 

seen ; that at -, for instance, where there was an 

oriel window on the first landing. This one has no 
landing ; it is of polished oak, but is carpeted. 

" Lady is a very attractive and elegant woman, 

sensible, sensitive, and with a soft, gentle way of 
speech and action, which is all the more charming as 
she is tall. Her tea was good. She talked well, and 
we got on together very satisfactorily. Presently a 
nurse brought in her two little daughters. I thought 
she must have approved of her savage Yankee guest ; 
for she encouraged them to come to me and sit upon 
my knees ; and all mothers are shy about that. Soon 
in popped Lord , and gave me the heartiest wel- 
come that I have received since I have been in Eng- 
land. He has altered somewhat since he was in New 
York; is grown a little stouter, and a very little 



352 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

graver, but is just the same frank, simple fellow as 
when you saw him. About seven o'clock I was asked 
if I would like to go up to my room. He went with 
me, — an attention which I found general ; and ' di- 
rectly he had left me,' according to the phrase here, 
a very fine-mannered person, in a dress coat and a 
white tie, appeared, and asked me for my keys. I 
apprehended the situation at once, and submitted to 
his ministrations. He did everything for me except 
actually to wash my face and hands and put on my 
clothes. He laid out everything that I could need, 
opened and laid out my dressing-case, and actually 
turned my stockings. Dinner at eight. I take in 

Lady . Butler, a very solemn personage, but 

not stout nor red-faced.^ I have seen no stout, red- 
faced butler since I have been in England. Dining- 
room large and handsome. Some good portraits. 
Gas in globes ' at the walls ; candles on the table. 
Dinner very good, of course. Menu written in pencil 
on a porcelain card, with the formula in gilt and a 
coronet. Indeed, the very cans that came up to my 
bedroom with hot water were marked with coronet 
and cipher. I was inclined to scoff at this, at first, 
as ostentatious ; but after all, as the things were to 
be marked, how could it be. done better? 

" After dinner, a very pleasant chat in the drawing- 
room until about eleven o'clock, when Lord sent 

Lady to bed. She shakes hands on bidding me 

good-night, and asks if half past nine o'clock is too 
early for breakfast for me. I was tempted to say 
that it was, and to ask if it could n't be postponed 

1 The " swellest " butler that I saw in England was a tall thin man, pale 
with gray hair and side-whiskers closely cut. He was quite like the 
Bishop of . 



PARKS AND PALACES. 353 

till ten ; but I did n't. The drawing-room, by the 
way, although it was handsome and cheerful, was far 
inferior in its show to a thousand that might be found 
in New York, many of which, too, are quite equal to 

it in comfort and in tasteful adornment. Lord 

and I sit up awhile and chat about old times and the 
shooting on Long Island, and when I go to my room 
I find that, although I am to stay but two days, my 
trunk has been unpacked and all mj^ clothes put into 
the wardrobe and the drawers, and most carefully 
arranged, as if I were going to stay a month. My 
morning dress has been taken away.^ 

" In the morning the same servant comes, opens 
my window, draws my bed curtain, prepares my bath, 
turns ray stockings, and in fact does everything but 
actually bathe and dress me, and all with a very 
jjleasant and cheerful attentiveness. At a quarter 
past nine the gong rings for prayers. These are gen- 
erally read by the master of the household in the 
dining-room, with the breakfast-table laid ; but here 
in a morning-room. After breakfast you are left 
very much to yourself. Business and household af- 
fairs are looked after by your host and hostess ; and 
you go where you please and do what you like. 

" On Sunday I of course went to church with the 
famil}' : a charming old church ; tower of the time 
of Edward III. : some fine old monuments. We 
merely walked through the park a distance of about 
the width of Washington Square, passed through a 
little door in the park wall, and there was the church 
just opposite. It was Harvest Thanksgiving day, a 
festival recently introduced in England, in imitation 

1 To be carefully brushed, examined, and, if it is found necessar}', put 
in order otherwise. You are not consulted upon such trifling matters. 
23 



354 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

of that which has come down to us from our Puritan 
forefathers. There was a special service ; and the 
church was very prettily dressed with oats, flowers, 
grass, and grapes, the last being substituted for hops, 
as it was too late for them. The offerings were for 
the Bulgarians ; for everything now in England rs 
tinged with the hue of ' Turkish horrors.' After 

service Lord took me to the chantry, where the 

tombs of the family are. It was to show me a famous 

statue, that of a Lady and her baby, at the birth 

of which she died, it dying soon, too. The statue is 
very beautiful, and is the most purely and sweetly pa- 
thetic work in sculpture that I ever saw. It had a 
special interest for me because I remembered reading 
about it in my boyhood ; but I had forgotten the 
name of the subject, and I had no thought of finding 
it here in a little country churcli. 

" Much the same at Place, or rather ' The 

Place,' as it is called simply, in the phrase of the 
country. I found there another ugly house, but the 
most beautiful park I had yet seen. The sweep of 
greensward before my bedroom window, the grand 
march of stalwart, high-crested trees, and the stately- 
terraced garden gave me great delight. In the mid- 
dle of the house is a great square hall with a polished 
oak floor, and colunnis supporting a corridor which 
I'uns all around the hall on the next floor, and upon 
which some dozen or fifteen doors of bedroom suits 
open, all alike, — a perilous similitude. Floor of the 
corridor oak also, very rich in color ; and this and 
the staircase and the hall below so polished that you 
could slide on them like a boy on ice. 

" There are three drawing-rooms, one of which, 
that which is used as sitting-room or parlor, has 



PARKS AND PALACES. 355 

at one end an organ ten feet wide and six deep, 
showing nineteen pipes in front, of wliicli six are 
large ; and yet it does not look too large for the 
room, in which besides are a library table of the larg- 
est size, a grand piano-forte, a round table that might 
have served King Arthur and his knights, a divan 
that would seat a harem, and a dozen great chairs 
with welcoming arms, and 'nary one alike,' — but, 
by the way, no rocking-chair; at the absence of 
which pest you know I must rejoice. The organ was 

once the Duke of 's. Lord 's uncle, who got 

tired of it and gave it to him. It must be pleasant 
to have uncles wlio get tired of organs. The great 

Oxford musician was down here and played on 

it admirably ; and on the piano-forte, too, very well. 
But English organ-playing seems always better to 
me than English piano-forte or violin playing. The 
latter is at best a little cold, tame, and precise. I 
have not, however, heard Arabella Goddard. 

"" The blue drawing-room, or West Room, has some 
fine pictures, among which are the best Canalettis — 
views in Florence — that I ever saw. In the din- 
ing-room is the finest Sir Joshua I have yet found 
anywhere, in public or in private. It is the portrait 

of a former Lady , and is the perfection of the 

expression of grace and elegance ; sweet and silvery 
in color, and yet not pale. A very interesting and 
peculiar picture is on the staircase. It is a copy by 
Gainsborough of a half-length portrait by Vandyke 

of the Duke of , an ancestor of Lord . The 

subject, the original master, and the copyist make it 

a very singular and valuable painting. Lord is 

very much absorbed in science, and has a laboratory 
and workshop in one wing of the house, where he 



356 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

and I spent some interesting hours ; but tliis did not 
keep us from playing lawn tennis with the ladies. 

" This is the way life passes from day to day in 
these 'great houses;' in which, by the way, except 
at'dinner, and when you dress in the morning and in 
the evening for dinner, you rarely see a servant, un- 
less you ring for one. There is a movement, which 
I am glad to see, to introduce the custom of having 
none bu.t women servants inside the house. Lord 

mentioned it to me, and at I found it in 

practice. It seemed to work admirably. And cer- 
tainly it was pleasant to see a comely kind of female 
butler and four tidy, comely maid-servants, in white 
gowns and blue ribbons, drawn up in row at the head 
of the table when we entered the dining-room ; and 
it was far more agreeable to have them serve us than 
to have three or four great hulking he-creatures, in 
black coats and white chokers, attend to the little 
wants of the table, when they should have been do- 
ing man's work of some kind. 

" At all these ' great houses ' my host has, at a 
hint from me, kindly taken me through all the offices, 
even to the laundry, etc., and has told me all about 
the management of such a household, which I wished 
to know by actual observation. I have managed to 
get the same information in the same way in regard 
to middle-class houses as well ; and have thus seen 
the domestic economy of England from that of the 
peasantry to -that of the peer. I have seen nothing of 
such great establishments as the Duke of Omnium's 
at Gatherum Castle ; but what I have seen is enough. 
In households such as those of which I have been 
speaking, there are between twenty-five and thirty 
servants inside the house ; that is, exclusive of those 



PARKS AND PALACES. 357 

in the stables, the gardens, and the grounds. And 
yet it was funny to hear two of my hosts, when I 
asked the functions of these servants, begin the list 
with, 'There's the odd man.' The place of each 
servant is very strictly defined, and they are all very 
punctilious about doing nothing that does not belong 
to their several places. This has caused the intro- 
duction, lately, of a functionary who is called the odd 
man, whose place is like John Wesley's parish, and 
who is about the most important person in the house- 
hold. Tell that Du Maurier is right, and that 

ladies here do wear mob-caps at dinner." 

Here the extracts from my letters end. What fol- 
lows is the mere expansion of brief memorandums. 

Our British cousins twit us " Americans " (for they 
" lump " us all, Yankees, emigrants, and children of 
emigrants, together) with a liking for high-sounding 
names. On my walk from Twickenham to Hamp- 
ton Court I passed "Devonshire House," " Bolton 
House," " Claremont Villa," and some other private 
residences with like names, which were written on 
their gate-posts. It might be reasonably supposed 
that these houses were at least pretty villa resi- 
dences ; but no, they were scrubby little roadside 
cottages, with a neglected j^atch of earth or grass be- 
fore them by way of court-yard, — cottages that did 
not rise even to the height of the shabby genteel. 
And, for my particular benefit, I suppose, a wretched 
row, the worst of them, the eaves of which were not 
ten feet from the ground, was styled " American 
Buildings." Every English house which is not in a | 
town has a name; and all over the country these / 
names are either ambitious or sentimental to a degree 
that is somewhat absurd. 



358 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

Mammon is worshiped in England qnite as much 
as in the United States ; but there are other gods 
there of nobler mien which we have not. One dif- 
ference in this respect is worthy of remark. There 
is in society no talk, or very I'arely any talk, about 
money or about business, using the word in its trad- 
ing sense. I was at the houses of men of business 
of various sorts, " city men " and others, where, 
among half a dozen or a dozen male guests, I was 
the only one not connected in some way with com- 
merce ; I was for some days at the country house of 
a London banker, where guests were coming and go- 
ing, and we sat from eighteen to twenty-five at table ; 
and not once, in the dining-room or in the drawing- 
room, did 1 hear these men talk of pounds, shillings, 
and pence in the way of business, or as a topic of 
conversation, or any mention of stocks, or consols, or 
principal, or interest : — nothing of the sort. I could 
not but think, at one of these informal entertain- 
ments, of the last dinner-party that I had attended 
in New York, where the company was supposed to be 
of the higher sort ; and indeed we had at least a dozen 
very " prominent gentlemen " there, including two ex- 
cabinet ministers. And yet the fish was not removed 
before all around me the table buzzed with the sound 
of "dollars," "bonds," "five-twenties," "legal ten- 
der," " principal and interest." Before they reached 
the pecus they began to talk about pecunia. This 
subject, with a slight admixture of party politics of 
the narrowest and most personal kind, furnished the 
only topics of conversation. In England ever3'^body 
that I met had something else to talk about ; the 
very " city men " showed themselves able to leave 
the city behind them when they came home to their 



PAEKS AND PALACES. 359 

families and friends, and to be only too glad to do 
so. There seems to be, even for tlie trader, the man- 
ufacturer, and the artisan, a richer and more va- 
ried life in England than the same classes have in 
" America." They love money there, perhaps even 
more than v^^e do here ; but they do not appear, the 
great mass of them, to love money-making so much 
for its own sake. At any rate, they have interests 
beyond it, — I will not offend Wall Street and Mr. 
John Sherman by saying above it ; and when you see 
two men chatting together in England over a chop, 
or an oyster, or a glass of ale, even if they are elderly 
men of business, you may in most cases be pretty 
sure that their talk is not of pounds, shillings, and 
pence, or any subject thereto pertaining. If social, 
moral, and literary topics fail them, or are beyond 
their ken, they have at least Ireland, and India, and 
Turkey, and Africa, and disestablishment, and buri- 
als, and ritualism, and game laws; and failing these, 
the " Court Circular." 

The careless confidence of people generally, in 
England, soon attracted by attention. There seemed 
to be no fear of thieves and burglars. At hotels 
it is common to leave the doors of bedrooms open, 
and the housekeepers smiled incredulously when I 
suggested the danger of the custom. I saw many 
front doors in London and in smaller towns left open 
or ajar. A friend to whom I mentioned this said 
that I was quite right, and pointed out to me that 
the windows of the large and handsome houses in 
the suburban place through which we were walking 
were absolutely without shutter or blmd. It was 
true. The windows of these houses, all of them 
residences of wealthy merchants, were without such 



860 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

protection of any kind, inside or outside ; and when 
I, with my friend, who lived in one of them, reached 
his house, we found his own front door ajar ! And 
this in the country which produces the London cracks- 
man, who is the terror of the police the world over. 

At Rockfort, near Birkenhead, in Lancashire, I ob- 
served what seemed to me a remarkable manifesta- 
tion of that determination to active resistance of 
wrong which is a distinguishing trait of English life. 
It seems that somehow, no one knew how, a report 
had got about that there was small-pox in Rockfort. 
Wherefore the authorities of the place had set up 
posters all about the neighborhood, in which they for- 
mally and officially denied the truth of the report 
aforesaid; and not only so, but threatened the par- 
ties originating and circulating this slander with 
prosecution at the law. Such a poster here would 
not be thought of ; and if set up it would only excite 
laughter ; but perhaps there is a question whether 
the determination and the ability to resist injurious 
misrepresentation have a moral and social aspect 
which is quite ridiculous. 

As 1 was on the rail from Birmingham to Liver- 
pool, I found myself in a carriage with a wornan, the 
charm of whose presence I shall never forget. She 
was very handsome ; a fair-skinned, dark-eyed, dark- 
haired beauty. She was approaching the maturity 
of woman's years, and her tall figure had ripened into 
a large and noble loveliness. A boy about ten years 
old called her " mamma ; " and yet her sweet lips 
and her sweet face were fresh, — as fresh and sweet 
as lier voice. She was one of those women who be- 
stow a blessing upon the world every time they come 
forth into it. So far she might in all respects have 



PAEKS AND PALACES. 361 

been a Yankee, But horrors, the dress of her ! 
It might be called heterogeneous ; but that would 
imply that it was somewhat geneous. Her gown was 
of a great plaid of purple and gray ; around her neck 
she had a silk kerchief of bronze and brown ; over 
her plaid gown was a short embroidered velvet 
sacque ; and all this she had surmounted with a light 
blue velvet bonnet in which flaunted a white feather ! 

Differences in custom, in fashion, and even, it 
would seem, in natural objects, distinguish places in 
England which are only a few miles apart, — a re- 
markable and characteristic trait. For example, ob- 
serving, as I walked in Sussex, a peculiarity in the 
forms of the tops of some chimneys, the lines being 
more complex than usual, I remarked upon it to a 
Sussex gentleman who was with me, and he told me 
that all chimneys in Sussex were finished at the top 
in that way. I found that this was true. I saw no 
chimneys built otherwise in that county, and I saw 
none of this form in any other county. And yet 
more, all the pigs in Sussex were black. Those I 
saw elsewhere were white, — as white as conscien- 
tious pigs could consistently be ; but, great or small, 
the pigs in Sussex were as black as crows. 

That such peculiarities should be limited by the 
narrow boundaries of counties is very noteworthy 
evidence of stability, of individuality, and of self- 
assertion. It is difficult for us, whose local traditions 
go back little farther than two hundred years, and 
have been disturbed and almost obliterated by the 
mobility of the whole civilized world within that 
period, to imagine how such peculiai-ities originated 
among people of the same blood living within a few 
miles of each other. They are, doubtless, of very 



362 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

remote origin ; and their preservation is tlie conse- 
quence of the immobility of rural life in England. 
Clarendon records that Charles II. was very near 
being discovered on his flight from the defeat of 
Worcester, because it was remarked by a smith at an 
inn where he stopped that " his horse's four shoes 
had been made in four several counties." Think of 
a way of putting shoes on a horse peculiar to the 
farriers of one county, and noticeably unlike that of 
the farriers in counties on either side ! But the va- 
riety was limited only by the capacity of the beast. 
If Charles had traveled upon a centipede, the English 
counties could have furnished him with peculiar shoes 
for every foot. We may laugli at this ; but is it not 
better that a man should be himself, that a commu- 
nity should be itself, than that either should be a 
mere imitation, a duplicate, or, it may be, a centupli- 
cate, of some other man or some other community ? 
Better county fashions in horse-shoes than shoes 
turned out in packages by machinery, in usum totius 
mundi ; to say nothing of the possible service of the 
county fashion in preventing the escape of royal fu- 
gitives from justice. 

In the climate of England I remarked the greater 
effect of the heat of the sun and the less of his light. 
I used to write most of my letters in bed before 
breakfast. At the end of October, the sun would 
shine into my window so warm that, although the 
room was large, I more than once had to get up and 
pull down the shade. The rays which fell upon the 
bed did not hurt my eyes with glare, but I could not 
bear the heat ; and yet it would afterwards rain al- 
most all day. We never have the sun with us so 
hot in the middle of October that we cannot bear it 



PAEKS AND PALACES. 363 

through a -window ten feet off. At first I thought 
that the climate was cooler than ours at the same 
season ; but that was because there was a " cold 
snap ; " only there was no snap at all in it, but a dis- 
mal, cheerless, uncheerable dankness. It is this 
ever-present moisture that makes a little heat op- 
pressive. Its effect seems to be all pervading. Ex- 
cepting champagne, nothing in England is ever quite 
dry, not even humor. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

ENGLISH IN ENGLAND. 

The worst English that I have ever heard spoken 
I heard in Enghind. There, however, I also heard 
the best that could be spoken, — not better, indeed, 
than is spoken in New England, New York, New 
Jersey, and Pennsylvania ; but of this best English 
I must acknowledge that I found much more among 
my British than among my " American " acquaint- 
ances, in proportion to their numbers. The standard 
of comparison in all cases is a British standard ; for 
it is a postulate in the discussion of this question that 
the best English is that which is accepted as the best 
by people of the best education and social standing 
in England. What is accepted by them ; not neces- 
sarily what is spoken by them. For, as we shall 
see, they are somewhat remarkable for variation by 
individuals from their own undisputed standard. 

Almost all " Americans " who live in cities have 
opportunities now and then of hearing English spoken 
by natives of Old England, which, however, is not 
therefore necessarily the best English. For, as many 
Frenchmen, even many Parisians, speak very bad 
French, so many Englishmen and many Londoners, 
in fact most Englishmen and most Londoners, speak 
bad English. I think that the vilest French that I 
ever heard was from a Parisian born and bred ; and 
a societaire of the Theatre Francais agreed with me 



ENGLISH IN ENGLAND. 365 

in my opinion of it. It would seem superfluous to 
say this, were it not for the common assumption that 
a Parisian must speak good French, and for the as- 
sumption by many Englishmen, who speak in the 
vulgarest way, that because of their English birth 
they are competent to criticise and to censure the 
speech of men born elsewhere, who are as thoroughly 
English in blood as they are, and whose education 
and training have been far superior to theirs. Nor 
is mastery of idiom so absolutely a matter of race, or 
even of early education. Whose Engiish surpasses 
in clearness and in idiomatic strength that of the Ger- 
man Max Mliller, first as an English writer among 
all contemporary philologists ? 

Among home-keeping Yankees who had never vis- 
ited England, I was, I am inclined to believe, some- 
what exceptional in my opportunities of observing 
the speech of Englishmen of various ranks, which 
began when I was a boy, and went on increasing 
in frequency until I crossed the ocean. There was 
therefore nothing very new to me in the average 
speech around me when I found myself among my 
kinsmen in the old home, and nothing at all new in 
the English that I heard from the friends that I found 
there, and from their acquaintances. How should 
there be ? This, too, would seem a superfluous re- 
mark, were it not for the assumption and assertion 
by some fussy and insufficiently informed purists and 
pedants that there are important differences between 
the language of the two peoples, due in part to the 
preservation in this country of phrases and pronun- 
ciations which are obsolete or obsolescent in England, 
and in part to changes which have taken place here, 
some of which are attributed — Heaven help us ! — 



366 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

to the influence of the aboriginal " Indians " upon 
our habits of mind and body ! 

Man}^ Yanliiees wlio speak with unconscious free- 
dom the language of good " American " society must 
have encountered with amusement the complimentary 
expressions of surprise at their " pure English," with 
which they were favored in England. A friend of 
mine, a lady, met one of these with a whimsical and 
characteristic reply, of which she told me with great 
glee. She was on both sides a Yankee of the Yan- 
kees ; but her mother bore a name which stands high 
among the historical patronymics of England. She 
was as fair, golden-haired, blue-eyed, and buxom a 
young matron as you would find in New England, 
or between the Tweed and the Channel ; and being 
once where there were many portraits of members of 
the family in question, her likeness to some of them 
was so striking that it was remarked upon. Never- 
theless, a gentleman, an officer in the British army, 
thought it necessary not only to compliment her upon 
her English, but to ask her if she was not peculiar in 
this respect among her countrywomen. " Oh, j'es," 
she immediately replied ; " but then I have had un- 
usual advantages. There was an English missionary 
stationed near my tribe." His captainship subsided 
at once into silence, and seemed to be revolving the 
matter in his mind in a more or less dazed fashion, 
which afforded her great amusement. 

Between the majority of Englishmen and the ma- 
jority of Yankees there is a difference of pitch and 
inflection of voice. The English pitch is generally 
higher ; the inflection is almost always more varied. 
The "average American's" voice is comparatively 
hard and monotonous. But upon this point, and 



ENGLISH IN ENGLAND. 367 

upon the general superiority of tlie Englishwoman's 
voice in its quality, — a soft, rich sweetness, — I have 
said enough elsewhere. Nor would any remark upon 
this point be on this occasion either requisite or per- 
tinent. It has nothing to do either with the sub- 
stantial part of language, the vocabulary, nor with 
pronunciation, which varies more or less from gen- 
eration to generation, which differs more or less in 
different circles, and which is not quite alike in all 
individuals in the same circle. This of course is true 
of both countries. 

The first peculiarity that attracted my attention in 
the speech of Englishmen w^as a thick, throaty utter- 
ance. It was not new to me, but I was struck by its 
general diffusion. The effect is somewhat as if the 
speaker were attempting to combine speech with the 
deglutition of mashed potato. This peculiar utter- 
ance, in which a guttural aw seems to prevail, is, how- 
ever, far from being universal. It is not higli-class 
speech. Yet it begins to manifest itself somewhat 
high up in the social scale, being perceptible just be- 
low what may be called the Oxford and Cambridge 
level. Then it broadens down from precedent to sub- 
sequent, until, when it reaches the lowest level, it is 
broad enough and thick enough for the foundation of 
a very substantial theory of peculiarity in national 
speech. It manifests itself chiefly in the utterance of 
some of the sounds of a, o, and u in combination with 
I and r ; for example, in such words as ale, pale, peo- 
ple, and royal, which are spoken by Englishmen of the 
lower and lower-middle classes much as if they were 
written ayull, payull, peopull, and ryull, the Ts being 
gobbled low in the throat with a turkey-like gulp. 
The tendency to this mode of speech seemed to be 



858 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

strongest in those who were short-necked and cor- 
pulent. I remember one obese, red-faced shopman 
who gulped at " Royal Wilton " in such a strangling 
fashion that I should hardly have been surprised to 
see him fall down upon the spot in a fit of apoplexy. 
General negative assertions are unsafe ; and I shall 
therefore not say that this gulp is never heard among 
educated English gentlemen and ladies ; but I am 
sure that in such society I never heard it. 

The ill treatment which the letter A receives from a 
very large proportion of the English people has long 
been known to the most superficial observers of their 
speech. It is the substance and the point of a stand- 
ing joke which never loses its zest. Mr. Punch's 
artists, when hard put to it for the subject of a social 
sketch, can always fall back upon the misfortunes of 
the aspirate. 11 in speech is an unmistakable mark 
of class distinction in England, as every observant 
person soon discovers. I remarked upon this to an 
English gentleman, an officer, who replied, " It 's the 
greatest blessing in the world ; a sure protection 
against cads. You meet a fellow who is well dressed 
and behaves himself decently enough, and yet j^ou 
don't know exactly what to make of him ; but get 
him talking, and if he trips upon his 7i's that settles 
the question. He 's a chap you 'd better be shy of." 
Another friend said to me of a London man of 
wealth, and of such influence as comes from wealth 
and good nature, " The governor has lots of sense, 
and is the best fellow in the world ; but he has n't an 
h to bless himself with." And there seems to be no 
help for the person who has once acquired this mode 
of pronunciation. Habits of speech, when formed in 
early life, are the most inei-adicable of all habits ; and 



ENGLISH IN ENGLAND. 369 

this one, I believe, is absolutely beyond the reach of 
any discipline, and even of prolonged association with 
good speakers. I have had opportunities of observ- 
ing many English persons of both sexes who came to 
"America" in their early childhood, who were edu- 
cated here, and who had attained mature years, and 
yet they could not vitter the initial A, but, for ex- 
ample, would say e,e for he. If they did, by special 
effort, sound the 7^, it was with a harsh ejaculation, 
and not with that light touch which, although so dis- 
tinctly perceptible, is but a delicate breathing, and 
which comes so unconsciously to good speakers in 
England, and to bad speakers as well as good — to 
all — in " America." In England I observed many 
people in a constant struggle with their A's, overcom- 
ing and being overcome, and sometimes triumphing 
when victory was defeat. 

The number of A's that come to an untimely end 
in England daily is quite incalculable. Of the forty 
millions of people there cannot be more than two 
or three millions who are capable of a healthy, well- 
breathed li. Think, then, of the numbers of this in- 
nocent letter that are sacrificed between sun and 
sun ! If we could send them over a few millions of 
A's a week, they would supply almost as great a need 
as that which we supply by our corn and beef and 
cheese. 

There is a gradation, too, in the misuse of this let- 
ter. It is silent when it should be heard ; but it is 
also added, or rather prefixed, to words in which it 
has no place. Now the latter fault is the sign and 
token of a much lower condition in life than the for- 
mer. The man who puts on a superfluous A, and 
says harm for arm and lieyes for eyes, will surely 

24 



870 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

drop the li from its riglitf ul place, and say ed and art 
for head and heart ; but the converse is far from be- 
ing true. The superfluous h is a much graver solecism 
than the suppressed. It is barbarous. To hear it 
you must go very low in the social scale. But, on 
the other hand, the suppression of the li is a habit 
that creeps up towards the very highest ranks, dimin- 
ishing in strength and extent as it rises, until it 
wholly disappears. For example, only Englishmen 
of the very uppermost class and finest breeding say 
home and hotel ; all others, 'ome and ''otel. And the 
latter are so unconscious of their slip, so sure that 
they do say home and hotel, that if they are charged 
with dropping the h they will deny it, and make des- 
perate efforts to utter the sound, which result only in 
throwing a very great stress upon the 0} These two 
words are the last and most delicate test of the h mal- 
ady. Past that line English speech, when not im- 
paired by individual incapacity or tainted by affecta- 
tion, is perfect, " express and admirable," 

Widely spread as this incapacity for managing the 
h is, it seems to have attracted little other attention 
in England than that which manifests itself in ridi- 
cule. No English orthoepist or phonologist whose 
work I have met with has made it the subject of ex- 
amination, or of more than a mere passing remark. 
Nor does it seem to have been even laughed at until 
very lately, — hardly before the beginning of this 
century. Until that time there is no evidence which 
I now remember that it had ever been taken note of. 
The Elizabethan dramatists make the English speech 
of Frenchmen and of Hollanders the occasion of 

1 This assertion I make upon competent concurrent testimony. I tried 
no such experiments myself. 



ENGLISH IN ENGLAND. 371 

laughter ; and among their own countrjaiien, Welsh- 
men, and even English rustic folk, do not escape. 
The dramatists of the Restoration ridicule the Irish 
speech till we are surfeited with their Teagues and 
their " dear joys." The speech of English clowns is 
also imitated, and in general ridiculed, not only in 
plays but in ballads, and at last in novels, from the 
first of these periods to the close of the last century. 
But in all this mass of low character painting there 
is not a touch of fun that depends upon a misplaced 
or a displaced h. Even such personages as Lord and 
Lady Duberly, Zekiel and Cicely Homespun, in "The 
Heir at Law," and Old Rapid and Young Rapid, 
Farmer Oatlands and Frank Oatlands, in " A Cure 
for the Heart Ache," although their " cacology " sup- 
plies no small part of the fun in the performance, are 
not represented as maltreating their A's. Sheridan, 
who belongs to the last quarter of the eighteenth cent- 
ury, leaves tliis trait of speech unridiculed, although 
he has low characters and made a Mrs. Malaprop. 
It would be hardly possible to find such personages 
in a play or a novel of to-day who were not made the 
butt of laughter on this account. 

That English writers on language should have 
made no remark upon this trait of English speech is 
in itself noteworthy. For it is peculiarly English, or 
rather South British. The Lowland Scotch, who are 
as English in blood as the people of England them- 
selves, and whose speech is an ancient and important 
English dialect, are entirely without this h trait ; and 
so are English people of Irish birth, the descendants 
of them of the old " English pale." Men of English 
blood and American birth, New Engianders, Vir- 
ginians, and the like, are also without it entirely. 



372 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

Yet it so pervades England that it might be regarded 
as a trait of normal English, but for the fact that it 
is entirely absent from the speech of those who speak 
the best English, and is to them a cause of aversion 
and an occasion of ridicule. It is remarkable, too, 
that this trick of speech is not at all the consequence 
of any inability with regard to the proper utterance 
of h. Quite the contrary ; for the man who threat- 
ens to " punch yer 'ed " will also " blarst yer heyes." ^ 
These facts seem to me to point to a conclusion 
which yet cannot be accepted as established, because 
of a fact which points another way, and which can- 
not be set aside, although it may be explained. The 
absence of any allusion to the li difficulty by English 
dramatists and humorists of the seventeenth and 
eighteenth centuries can hardly be accounted for ex- 
cept by the supposition either that it did not exist, 
or that it was not then peculiar to a low condition of 
life. The fact that it does not exist and never has 
existed in the speech of the English people of Ire- 
land or of " America " almost compels the conclusion 
that it was unknown in England in the fifteenth and 
sixteenth centuries, when (as to Ireland mainly, and 
as to North America absolutely) the English lan- 
guage was translated to those countries. The sudden 
outbreak about the beginning of this century, of ridi- 
cule provoked by the dropping and adding of the A, 
would seem to indicate either that the habit had been 
formed or had come into vogue with the lower classes 
during the eighteenth century, or that, having until 

^ A deliberate use of this pronunciation raised a laugh one day. At 
luncheon a gentleman found a stew rather too warm for his mouth. After 
a moment of condolence, another said, "Oh, it has always been so with 
English cooks. Does n't Gray say, 

" ' Even in their hashes live tlieir wonted fires ? ' " 



ENGLISH IN ENGLAND. 373 

that time prevailed among all classes, it was dropped 
and stigmatized as vulgar by the upper classes about 
the end of that century. ^ 

To the former of these inferences there is opposed 
the very stubborn fact that there is evidence in old 
English literature that what is now called the vulgar 
use of li was in past centuries the common and re- 
ceived pronunciation of English. This is not the 
place for a purely linguistic discussion ; but I will 
mention that in the " Lay of Havelok the Dane," 
written about A. D. 1280, and existing in a manuscript 
of about that date, eye is written heie^ earl Tierle^ old 
Tiold^ eat hete^ ate Jiet^ ever hever, and English Heng- 
lishe. There is a great deal of such evidence. More- 
over, there is the evidence given by the presence of 
the full form of the indefinite article an before words 
beginning with an accented syllable now aspirated : 
as, for example, " an household," '* an habit," " an 
headache," "an history," "an hundred." This con- 
tinued until a recent period, and has not yet entirely 
passed away, although it is passing. For example, 
Mr. TroUope, in his "Three Clerks," writes, "If the 
Board chose to make rhe Weights and Measures an 

hospital for idiots, it might do so He would 

never remain there to see the Weights and Measures 

1 It is -worthy of remark that h suffered in the speech of certain Romans 
in Catullus's day, not by being dropped, but by being added, as we see 
by his epigi'am on Arrius : — 

" Chommoda dicebat, si quando commoda vellet 

Dicere. et hinsidias Arrius insidias ; 
Et tunc mirificfe spectabal se esse locutum, 

Quum, quantum poterat, dixerat hinsidias. 
Credo sic mater, sic liber avunculus ejus, 

Sic maternus avus dixerit, atque avia. 

lonios fluctus, postquam illuc Arrius esset 
Jam non lonios esse, sed Hiouios." 



374 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

become an hospital for incurables." The presence of 
the n in such cases shows pretty clearly that the h 
was silent ; in which case there is evidence that it 
was dropped by the best English writers of the last 
century in many words in which it is now de rigueur 
that it should be beard. 

The change in some words is not yet quite per- 
fected. Mr. Thackeray spoke of the English Zmmor- 
ists ; and that pronunciation is given by Phelp of 
Cambridge in Stormonth's dictionary, the most con- 
venient and trustworthy handbook of English speech 
that I have found ; but I heard Cambridge dons talk 
of " Every Man in his Umour." In this, however, 
they merely preserved the pronunciation of the last 
generation, as certain English clergymen do, who 
offer " 'umble and 'earty thanks " in the church 
service every Sunday. Walker gives the pronuncia- 
tions, hospital ospital, humble umhle, humor yumer^ 
in all of which Phelp calls for the sound of h. Mr. 
Trollope's "an hospital" is merely a remnant of old- 
fashioned pronunciation, which, if I remember rightly, 
will not be found in his later novels. ^ 

The question is one which it is not safe to under- 
take to decide without a careful and thorough exam- 
ination of the whole range of English literature ; but 

1 In the English Bible such instances as the following are countless: 
" and set an hedge about it " (Mark xii. 1) ; " and when ye come into an 
house, salute it" (Matthew x. 12); "and there was a good way off from 
them an herd of swine feeding" (Matthew viii. 30). The best writers of 
Queen Anne's reign use an in this way before h: "that no person below 
the dignit}^ of a Roman knight should presume to write an history." (Ad- 
dison, Freeholder, No. 35.) The following passage from Taylor's transla- 
tion of the New Cratylus, a. d. 1793, seems to have been written when 
the writer's ear was distracted by a changing pronunciation: " Soc. What, 
then, if I should call an^'^thing in such a manner as to denominate that 
an horse which we now call a man, and that a man which" we now call a 
horse ? " (Page 3). But on page 19 we have " a horse " six times. 



ENGLISH IN ENGLAND. 375 

I venture tlie conjecture, which, however, is some- 
what more than a conjecture, that the suppression of 
h was once very widely diffused throughout Enghi,nd 
among all speakers, including the best, during which 
time — a very long one — the function of h was to 
throw a stress on the syllable which it ushered in, as 
it is, for example, in the Spanish word Mjo ; that 
the widely diffused suppression of the breathing 
among the lower classes of modern England is, like 
many other so-called vulgarisms, a mere survival 
among them of what has perished among their " bet- 
ters ; " and that this suppression of the h was so 
general, even among the upper classes so late as the 
middle of the last century, that it provoked no re- 
mark, — indeed, attracted no attention from the 
social critics and satirists. 

This theory, however, leaves the correct pronun- 
ciation of the h by all classes in Ireland and in 
" America " unaccounted for. But that remarkable 
fact may possibly be the i-esult of a predominance in 
the emigrants to those countries of people from the 
north of England. For the dropping and the adding 
of the h is even now, after forty years of railway 
intercoui-se, so much more common in most of the 
southern counties of England than in the northern 
as to be remarkable on that account. It is some- 
times called a " cockneyism." No view of it could 
be farther from the truth. Some of the most marked 
cases of it that I have ever met with were in Cornish 
people from near Land's-End, who had never been in 
or near London. 

Nor do all London people of the lower orders have 
this trouble with their A's. I observed this in many 
instances. One particularly impressed me. On my 



376 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

way from Rochester to London I left my own seat, 
and entered a tliird-class carriage, on a visit of ob- 
servation. Taking my seat next a woman, I soon fell 
into talk with her, which before we had gone many 
miles became somewhat confidential on her part. 
She was, I found, a commercial traveler ; in a word, 
a female bagman. But although she was born and 
brought up in London, and was quite in her proper 
place in a third-class carriage, I observed that her 
pronunciation w^as perfectly correct, and that she 
never dropped an 7^, much less added one superflu- 
ously. Her language also was good, although her 
manner of speech and the tone of her voice revealed 
the lowness of her origin. She was very intelligent ; 
and altliough she talked with a strange man thus 
freely, her behavior and her manner were perfectly 
modest. 

One pronunciation, which has been called a Yankee 
trait, I was surprised to find diffused all over Eng- 
land and among all classes, — aou for o%l. I had first 
observed this some years before in the case of an 
English gentleman, an author of some note, whom I 
met in New York, and who said very plainly paouyid 
for pound. I thought it might be a trick peculiar to 
him ; but when I was in England I found quite to 
the contrary. Paound was the rule ; pound the ex- 
ception. In Liverpool, the next morning after my 
arrival, I Avent to look at a house which was to let ; 
and the young lady who was kind enough to show it 
to me (the daughter of the tenant, a physician, and 
of repute, as I learned) told me that it was " a beau- 
tiful haouse," which indeed it was. A railway por- 
ter, on my asking him how long I should have to wait 
for a train, replied, " Nearly a haour, sir." I was at 



ENGLISH IN ENGLAND. 377 

breakfast in London at the University Club with an 
author of distinction and a Fellow of his college, 
when a friend of his, evidently a member of the club, 
came up and said, " Haou d' deaou?" At Westmin- 
ster Abbey, at the door of which I presented myself 
at a certain time in the service, a verger said to me, 
" You cawnt pahss in neaou, sir." In a first-class 
carriage on the South Eastern Railway I had as fel- 
low passengers two men, who were quite well dressed, 
and one of whom was nicely gloved. Their talk 
was bucolic. " Osses are bad to git." " They are 
bad to git; 'igh prices." "Haou abaout caouws? " 
"■ Caouw cattle are very good at Aylesbury." These 
men said " di-xeci\j " and " sheootin " (shooting) ; 
and one of them, " Must n't we alleaow [that is, 
confess] that ? " On my walk from Canterbury to 
Harbledown I asked direction of a boy whom I met, 
who said, " Ther 's an old church up aour way that 
they call Hairbledaoun church," just like a rustic 
Yankee boy that I might have met in the remotest 
parts of New Hampshire. In Kent the farmers and 
the peasants spoke warmly of the goodness of the 
" graound." 

One instance of this pronunciation produced an 
odd effect. At Warwick Castle, as I walked across 
the greensward of the base court on my way to the 
great tower, I picked up a large, handsome gray 
feather, which I still have. I asked the man who 
stood at the foot of the tower to take my shilling, 
what bird had dropped this feather. Looking at it a 
moment, he said, " It 's an auk." Of course I knew 
that he did not mean the bird called the ank, and I 
showed him that it could not be a hawk's feather, 
when he exclaimed, " Oh, it 's a haowl, it 's a haowl I 



378 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

We 've got a big liaowl 'ere, and 'e 's dropped one of 
'is feathers." Two or three days afterwards I was at 
a performance of "Kmg Lear" in Birmingham by an 
actor of reputation. In the last act, as the poor old 
king is coming in with the dead Cordelia, he cries, 
"Howl, howl, howl ! " These words are heard from 
behind the scenes before Lear actually appears ; and 
they were on this occasion so very nearly " Haowl, 
haowl, haowl ! " that they brought the Warwick 
"haowl" instantly and vividly to my mind ; and the 
result was far from being in keeping with the feeling 
proper to the scene. 

These examples, it will be seen, come from all 
quarters and from all classes. This rueful note is, 
however, uttered with a difference in the two coun- 
tries. In England the aou has none of that nasality 
which often enters into its composition in " Amer- 
ica," and makes it, not lovely in itself, cei'tainly one 
of the most offensive sounds that can be uttered 
by the human voice. But among the better class of 
speakers in "America" this aou^ either compounded 
with nasality or pure and simple, is never heard, 

Thejre is, in fact, in the pronunciation of the upper 
classes in England no marked difference from that of 
well-educated, well-bred people in the Northern and 
Eastern States of the Union. I observed, however, 
on the one hand a stronger tendency to the full, broad 
ah in some words, and on the other to the English 
diphthongal a (the name sound of the letter, aee) in 
others. At Westminster Abbey I observed that the 
officiating canon said " commaAndment " and " re- 
membraAnce," trilling the r as well as broadening 
the a; and at King's Chapel, Trinity, Cambridge, 
where I sat next the reader, my ear was pleased 



ENGLISH IN ENGLAND. 379 

with his "power and comnia/mdment." I heard the 
same broad ah sound of a in transplant, past, cast, 
ask, and the like from three distinguished authors, 
one of them a lady, whom I had the pleasure of 
meeting in London. At the debates among the young 
men at the Oxford Union, I heard the same broad 
sound, — gra/mted, cla/zss, pa/^sture, and so forth. 
But at St. Paul's, in London, a young deacon who 
said, " Hea/i beginneth the tenth chapta/i of the book 
of Kings," yet said, " And it came to pass," and 
even worse " path," clipping his a's down to the 
narrow vowel sound of an. On the whole, however, 
the broad sound very greatly prevailed among the 
university-bred men. 

The name sound of a attracted my attention 
chiefly in proper names, mostly classical. It seemed 
somewhat strange to hear a Cambridge don say Cleo- 
pa2/tra and Coriolaynus ; and not the less so because 
he did not say Ayt\\&nB. But I remember that By- 
ron (somewhere in Don Juan, I believe) by a rhyme 
requires the pronunciation Sardanapa^/lus. This use 
of the English a is carried into Latin ; and at Ox- 
ford the prevailing pronunciation of Baliol is Ba?/liol. 
Yet at the Union debates and elsewhere I heard the 
Continental /insisted upon strongly in calibre, — pro- 
nounced caleebre, — although the accepted pronun- 
ciation is calibre, as in " America." 

In words like " institute," " duke," and " constitu- 
tion," in which u follows d or i^, the English u (io- 
tized iL) is generally uttered with very unmistakable 
clearness by the best speakers. Some of them are so 
very particular on this point that they suggest the 
spelling m^titewt., constitett^tion, which seemed to me 
somewhat extravagant and affected. It is well to 



380 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

avoid institoot and dooh ; but still one need not tew 
the word, like a rustic Yankee saying too. 

From a clergyman in Kent, tlie rector of one of 
three parishes, which, lying together, are called " the 
three Graces," because the living of each is a full 
thousand pounds, I heard the old pronunciation of 
ivere, making it a perfect rhyme to ware and there. 
This pronunciation, which prevailed for centuries, 
and which is correct (if in pronunciation there is any 
correctness other than a conformity to the best usage 
of one's time), had passed out of vogue before Walk- 
er's day, more than three quarters of a century ago. 
From the same reverend gentleman I heard the old 
pronunciation of mercy, earth, and virtue, — not 
murcy, urth and vurtue, — but a sound of e like that 
in the first syllable of error, which I had heard from 
well-educated old people in my boyhood. And yet 
this gentleman was not an aged man. He had merely 
preserved the pronunciation which he had learned in 
his youth. The fact is worthy of remark chiefly as 
it is an illustration of a certain independence, or 
rather individuality, of speech which is not uncom- 
mon in England. English people do not fear to 
maintain a little singularity even in their language. 

Among clergymen I observed a general retention 
of the final ed of the participle, as belov-ed, betray-ed, 
observ-ecl, and the like. To this I had been accus- 
tomed, of course, in the reading of the Liturgy and 
of the Bible ; but in England I heard it even in ser- 
mons, in the delivery of which " American " clergy- 
men, according to my observation, always use the 
contracted form. In other respects the delivery of 
the clergy of the two countries seemed to me quite 
alike, making allowance, of course, for merely indi- 



ENGLISH IN ENGLAND. 381 

vicinal peculiarities on both sides. And when I speak 
of clergymen in America, I do not mean such men as 
he who preached the sermon on " a harp of a thou- 
sand strings," but men like Dr. Dix, Dr. Potter, and 
Dr. Schenck in the Episcopal church, and Dr. Adams, 
Dr. Bellows, and Dr. Chapin among the Presbyte- 
rians, Unitarians, and Congregation alists. It is, how- 
ever, true, I believe, that in England more than in the 
United States clergymen read the service, the Bible, 
and their sei^mons not only with a more settled em- 
phasis, but with a perceptible cadence, which in some 
cases approaches a see-saw inflection, and which has 
somewhat the effect of a measured chant. I heard this 
from one old clergyman here in my childhood, — Dr. 
Milnor, of St. George's, where I first went to church. 
I was only six years old when I last saw him in sur- 
plice and bands, but I can now hear the regular rise 
and fall of his silvery voice, the measured inflections 
of which seemed to my childish ears to have a certain 
sanctity in them in keeping with the place and with 
the religious function which he was performing.^ 
But after that time I never heard it until I went to 
England, and there not from all clergymen. 

This style of delivery is a survival of the old style 
of elocution. The late Hon. Luther Bradish told me 
in the later years of his life that in his boyhood he 
was at a country house in England, not far from 
London, and. that Mrs. Siddons used to be there 

1 This venerable and most estimable clergyman always read praj'ers and 
preached in black silk gloves, as indeed my own grandfather did ; for it 
was the fashion then among clergymen of the Episcopal church who were 
at all particular about clerical costume. The forefinger and thumb of the 
rjghl-hand glove were slit open to enable the wearer to turn the leaves of 
Prayer Book and Bible. A fine line-engraved portrait of Dr. Milnor in 
the pulpit, and thus decorated, is in ray possession. 



382 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

often, and would read poetry to tlie ladies as they 
sat at needle-work in the morning parlor. He spoke 
with great admiration of the beauty of her voice and 
the nobility of her manner. I asked him what was 
the style of her reading, — whether it was free and 
natural. He replied, "Not quite. She read with a 
measured cadence. As I remember it now, there 
must have been a good deal of sing-song about it ; and 
there was the same in her delivery of long speeches 
on the stage. But still it was very fine, and in her 
it seemed to iny boyish taste angelic." 

The conversion of final ng into n is notably com- 
mon in England, even by speakers of the highest 
classes ; far more so, I should say, than it is in 
" America ; " certainly much, very much, more so 
than it is among our best bred people, who indeed 
are very rai-ely guilty of this slovenliness. But in 
England members of Parliament, Fellows of col- 
leges, dukes and dandies, farmers, philologists, say 
doin', bein', seein', and even line for lying. I heard 
an absurd little swell (and yet I believe he was at 
bottom a good fellow) say, " Ofi, yeth ! But you 
thee, I bein' tho vewy fond of 'untin' and thootin', I 
cahnt be thtoppin' in London in the autumn." And 
yet I '11 be bound that little chap thought great scorn 
of the " American " way of speaking English. I ob- 
served, by the way, that impediments, or rather inca- 
pacities, of speech are much commoner in England 
than they are with us. A lisping man here is a very 
rare bird; but in England, especially among the up- 
per classes, he is not uncommon. As an affectation 
the fashion is not very new. Chaucer's wanton and 
merry friar lisped "to make his Englissch swete upon 
his tunge." There is the same comparative common- 



ENGLISH IN ENGLAND. 383 

ness there and uncommonness liere of men who have 
trouble with r, and who say, like iny little friend, 
" vewy." It was amusing to hear an officer in the 
Guards talk about his;" wedgment." 

Of pronunciations which were evidently deliberate 
variations from the standard, I observed, in addition 
to those which I have already mentioned, knotv-ledge, 
which I heard only from the lips of educated men, 
first from a barrister of unusual scholarship and ac- 
complishments ; — oppo-zite, which I heard not infre- 
quently from speakers of all classes, and which I first 
heard in this country from an English clergyman who 
was visiting at my father's house, and who produced 
a pocket Greek Testament at morning prayers and 
followed in it my father's reading, somewhat, as I dis- 
covered, to his amusement ; — tov-to9/s (tortoise), in 
which the last syllable was pronounced just like the 
plural of toi/ ; but this, though not a low-class pro- 
nunciation, was uncommon, the general pronuncia- 
tion of the syllable in question being, not as the 
dictionaries give it, either tis or tus^ but an ab- 
breviation of toise which is quite inexpressible by 
letters. In Chester the I in half, tvalk, talk, balk, 
and the like words is still sounded. Those from 
whom I heard it were neither rustic nor uneducated 
speakers. 

One of the most characteristic and striking speeches 
that I heard was from a young gentleman, an author, 
and the son of an author and editor of some distinc- 
tion (neither of them is now living), who in the course 
of talk about Lord Beaconsfield, then Mr. Disraeli, 
exclaimed, " Wot 'n igstrawnry man ! " I could make 
no mistake about it, for he repeated the remark soon 
after, — " Wot 'n igstrawnry man ! " 



884 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

Of quite a different sort was the noteworthy pro- 
nunciation of a little fellow who officiated as " but- 
tons " at a house in Essex where I was visiting, and 
who said to me, as he came into my room one morn- 
ing, " I 've took your dress trousis to the tiler's, sir." 
Now if he had taken my hat to the tiler's, it would 
not have been so surprising. But in fact he had 
taken ray trousers to the tailor's ; and his pronuncia- 
tion of the title of that functionary was a, to me, 
charming survival of the old sound of the word. 
For English i is ah-ee, and tiler is simply ta-ee-ler 
(with the a broad) ; that is, the French tailleur, in 
which form our modern name for the old "sempster" 
came into the language. And by the way, whatever 
uncertainty there may be about other words of like 
termination, there is no doubt that this is an Eng- 
lish form of the French tailleur ; and yet neither 
Johnson himself, nor the most bigoted of Johnsonian 
etymological spellers, has insisted upon spelling the 
word tailour. The Doctor and his followers have 
remained content with tailor^ although, unlike honor 
and favor^ it has no Latin original. This little fel- 
low also told me that it was "foive minutes past 
aight." 

Of words new to me I met with only one. (I of 
course am leaving out of consideration the dialect 
and the folk phrases of remote rural districts. And 
indeed of that I had little opportunity to hear any- 
thing. In the counties in which I took my rural 
walks I found few dialectic peculiarities worthy of 
special remark, either in vocabulary or in pronuncia- 
tion.) This word was singlet, which came up to me 
printed on my first washing bill in Liverpool. I had 
never seen it before ; but its suggestion of doublet of 



ENGLISH IN ENGLAND. 385 

course instantly showed me that it must mean an tin- 
der-vest, as it did, — a merino under-shirt. I never 
heard it spoken, nor did I meet with it in any other 
part of England ; nor is it in any English diction- 
ary. It is a Lancashire word. And yet of course 
it is not dialectical, which being Romanic it could 
not be. It reminded me that in one of Ford's trag- 
edies a woman passing from one chamber to another 
in the night speaks of herself as going "thus singly," 
meaning plainly, and as the contest shows, not that 
she went alone, but that she was covered with a 
single garment.^ 

Of familiar words used in a somewhat peculiar 
sense I found a few. 

Ever is frequently heard in composition thus : 
"Whoever is it?" "Whatever can it be?" This 
usage is mostly confined to ladies, and is not re- 
garded as good English. 

Tiresome is used for disagreeable. " Those tire- 
some Brighton people." "Do be quiet: why will 
you be so tiresome ? " " That cross, ill-natured, tire- 
some woman." 

Mind, as a verb, not uncommon in "America," has 
its function stretched to an extreme which is some- 
times laughable. There is not only " Would you 
mind handing me the milk-jug ? " for " Would you 
take the trouble," etc., but " I don't mind that," 
meaning, don't find it unpleasant. I heard a lady, 
a peeress, say to a very swellish fellow who had just 
taken honors at Oxford, " A is a very good fel- 
low, — so pleasant ; don't you think so ? " "Ah — 
yes," was the slow reply, "I — don't — mind him." 

1 The curious reader will find the passage in Love's Sacrifice, Act II, 
Sc.l. 

2b 



386 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WriHIN. 

This brought to my recollection that in one of Charles 
Reade's novels a young gentleman, also a swell, pro- 
poses in this fashion : " Would you mind our getting 
married ? 1 should n't." 

Nasty. This word, of unpleasant suggestions, is 
used much more commonly in England than it is in 
the United States. An ill-natured speech is called 
" a nasty speech," a stormy day " a nasty day ; " and 
I even heard an English lady call an awkward step 

"a nasty step." Therefore, when Lady A said 

here at a dinner, where she sat at her host's right 
hand, speaking to her husband, who sat at the host- 
ess' right hand, and who thought it proper not to 

touch his soup, " Do take some, A : it 's not at 

all nasty," she did not mean to be so laide, that is, 
quite so rude, as she seemed to those who sat with 
her. But some ladies have told me that her cuffs 
and collars might have had the word applied to them 
with fitness, if not with propriety.^ 

Jug is universally used for pitcher. I did not hear 
the latter word once in any part of the country, or 
from s]3eakers in any class of life, while I was in 
England, but always the " water-jug," " the milk- 
jug." This usage is of very recent origin, and the 

1 How constant!}^ this word is applied in England bj' well-bred people 
to other people who are also well bred, but disagreeable or much in the 
way, may be inferred from the fact that I met with all these examples in 
reading one novel of Mr. TroUope's, Is he Popenjoyf The lovely Mary 
Lovelace exclaims, in a fit of jealousy, " Nasty creature 1 wicked, wicked 
beast! Oh, George, she is so ugly." (Chap, xxxii.) " But she is a nasty, 
vile creature; and I will never speak to her again." (Chap, xl.) "He is 
so nasty. Don't you see that his face alwaj's shines?" (Chap, xlix.) 
" What a nasty, false, wicked old woman she was ! " (Chap. 1.) "Nasty, 
fat old woman. I 'm sure I didn't want to hear her." (Chap. Ix.) " Oh, 
George ! dear George ! you have made me so happy. . . . She is a nasty, 
hardened creature ; and I do hate her. . . . How a woman can be so nasty 
I can't imagine." (Chap. lix. ) 



ENGLISH IN ENGLAND. 387 

word itself is comparatively new. Accoi'ding to all 
evidence of English literature and lexicography, a 
jug is a coarse vessel with swelling sides, usually 
made of stone-ware or brown clay, — a thing that 
never would be brought upon a nicely served table. 
A pitcher, on the contrary, may be large or small, 
gracefully shaped, and of porcelain, of china, of 
crystal, of silver, or of gold. The word jug is un- 
known to our earlier literature, and is not found in 
the Bible, although pitcher and bottle occur there 
frequently; and pitclier has been known for centu- 
ries as the equivalent of ollula^ urna, amphora. 

3Ierchant is widely misused. You shall not find a 
grog seller who does not call himself a spirit mer- 
chant, or a man in a little black den of coals who 
does not call himself a coal merchant. The word is 
misused in this way among us of late years, but not 
quite to such an extent. Still, however, there is 
in England a standard and a tribunal before which 
such bad usage has no force. I heard of a man who 
had been in trade, and in a large way ; but his affairs 
had gone to utter ruin, and left him old, poor, and 
helpless. He was respected and personally liked, 
and there was an effort to get him into an asylum 
founded for " decayed merchants." The trustees, al- 
though they had the kindest feeling toward him, and 
wished to give him help, decided that they could not 
admit him, because he was not a merchant. He had 
never been engaged in foreign trade, — had never 
owned or even chartered a ship. 

Tid^ is strangely used to mean good of its kind, 
pretty. The misuse, however, does not, according to 
my observation, rise above the lower-middle class. 
Among them a tidy girl means a pretty girl, and 



388 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

particularly a girl with a good figure. Indeed, I 
have often heard tidy applied to a young woman of 
whose person and clothing tidiness, according to the 
true meaning of the word, could sarely not be predi- 
cated ; for the untidiness of the lower-class English- 
woman, unless she becomes a chamber-maid or a bar- 
maid, passes man's understanding. Tidy is also used 
for pretty in a metaphorical sense, as thus, by a dis- 
tinguished novelist : " The alcohol we consume every 
day would be a tidy sale for a small public-house." ^ 

Do is made a word of all work. Women do their 
back hair, and do everything that they arrange. " I 
have got these flowers to do," meaning to arrange 
in a vase. " Tom," said a lady at luncheon, " would 
you mind changing seats ? I can't do this beef," 
meaning that she could not carve and serve it. On 
my way from Birmingham to London a lady got out 
of the carriage at a small station. She was one of 
the women who take responsibility heavily ; for she 
faithfully tried to shut the door of the carriage, and 
after struggling with it a moment she broke out, " Oh, 
dear! you must call some one. I can't do this door."^ 

Just so, just so, is the most common phrase of gen- 
eral assent ; Fancy, now I a very common expression 
of surprise ; and among men, esj)ecially among young 
men, a greater degree of surprise, with an added im- 
plication of protest, breaks forth in Oh, I say I 

Immediately and directly are strangely used for 

1 Of tidy, in its primitive sense, timely, I remember this singular exam- 
ple : "With good olcle wine, and good, fat, and tidie flesh or b_yrdes." 
(The Byrth of Mankinds, by Thomas Eaynald, 1540, M. i. a.) That is, 
flesh or birds in season. 

2 That clever writer, Harry Quilter, in the London Sj^ectator, says, 
" I want to take hold of my little friend in the red-morocco slippers, and 
give him a good shake, and make him do his hair like other men," 
(March 6, 1881.) 



ENGLISH IN ENGLAND. 389 

" when " or " as soon as." This usage is not re- 
garded as the best, and has not the sanction of the 
best writers ; but in every-day speech it prevails 
widely, and it is even found in the books of writers 
of repute. The following passages, from the pages 
of a novelist of distinction, furnish examples of this 
queer and widely prevalent misapprehension and 
misapplication : " Directly he entered the room, 
Mrs. D formally introduced him." " Imme- 
diately N 's arrival was heard of, Mrs. W 

hastened up to town." '"Are you ill?' said G , 

directly she saw him." 

" Different to " for " different from " is in general 
vogue, except among the most careful speakers. Al- 
though it is in almost universal use in England, it is 
not defensible, and is not English. It is, however, 
no novelty. Baker, in his " Remarks on the English 
Language," 1770, justly censures it, as well as '' dif- 
ferent tlian^^ which is also in common use. " Differ- 
ent to " has, however, the support of Addison. 

Awfully. I cannot say that the misuse of this 
word in England struck me as peculiar, for it is mis- 
used in the same monstrous way here. But there I 
was amazed by the high quarters in which I heard it 
maltreated. We all know what auful means in 
Shakespeare, in the Bible, the Prayer Book, in Ad- 
dison, and in Macaulay ; but when I heard a Cam- 
bridge don, who was engaged in earnest scientific 
•talk with another, say, " That 's an awfully good ex- 
periment," and when I heard the president of the 
Philological Society say to a lady who sat next me, 
in the most matter-of-course, unconscious way, " Oh, 
yes, she 's an awfully nice girl," I came to the con- 
clusion that, whatever it may have once meant in 



390 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

the speech of England, in the language of Philistia 
awfully means "very." 

My horror of horrors, however, was the hearing 
at Oxford — at Oxford of all places, and at the Ox- 
ford Union ! — a member of the university speak of 
" events which are daily tj-ansj^iring under our very 
eyes." After that I gave up observing, or eA^en car- 
ing about, the misuse of English in England. What 
was it to me that they had not escaped the loathsome 
contamination of which I saw evidence in the sign, 
" Wine Office and Sample Room,''' at 95 Regent Street 
Quadrant ! 

I was surprised, indeed, to meet with that disgust- 
ing Americanism, of New York origin, in London ; 
but I was none the less amused at the fastidious shud- 
der with which a lady in a first-class railway carriage 
said to her daughter, w'ho had declared that some- 
thing or other was " not worth a row of pins," " My 
dear, I do wish that you would not use that low 
American slang." American slang ! Oh, Lady 
Philistina, how I longed to quote to you the passage 
from the sad scene in Richard II., in which the queen, 
apprehensive of her coming woes, says, — 

" But stay, here come the gardeners : 
Let us step into the shadow of these trees. 
My wretchedness unto a roio of pins 
The_v '11 talk of state." 

Indeed, what simile would better fit a woman's mouth, 
queen although she was ? This passage, by the way, 
is of interest as showing that pins were put up in the 
same way three hundred years ago as now. 

The general pronunciation of French in England 
is remarkably bad. As good French as I ever heard 
came from English lips ; but in England generally, 



ENGLISH IN ENGLAND. 391 

even among educated people, there seems to be a dif- 
ficulty in the mastery of the French tone and inflec- 
tions whick does not exist in the United States. A 
Frenchman first called my attention to this fact. The 
French commonly heard in England, even among the 
higher classes, is well represented in " Punch. " by 
Mrs. Jones, n6e De Topsawyer, who, on being shown 
by an old French seneschal the tomb of William 
the Conqueror, says, " C'est trays anterressong poor 
mwaw, voos savvy ; parsker je sweez oon descen- 
dong de Gilyome le Conquerong." The seneschal 
bows and says, " Et moi aussi, madame." I was 
amused at hearing an accomplished actor, on being 
asked the pronunciation of chevalier, reply with a 
lofty glibness, " shove-alley-ay." In the same way 
he gave "amusemong" as the pronunciation of the 
French amusement. The reason of the greater fa- 
cility of " Americans " in French, which is undenia- 
ble, it is not very easy to discover. 

I must pass over not a few minor points in regard 
to the English of England which I hoped to touch 
upon, and close this chapter of my English expe- 
rience with a story of a little talk I had with a man 
on the Surrey side of London Bridge. I was passing 
a hatter's shop, and seeing the shop-keeper himself, 
as I supposed, at the door, and thinking that he 
looked like the sort of man I should like to talk to, 
I stopped, and, entering, asked the price of a hat. 
" Seven and six, sir, that style. Them, nine shillin. 
But if you 'd like to 'ave sumthink werry helegant, 
'ere 's our tiptop harticle at ten and six." I thought 
it right to tell him at once that I did not intend buy- 
ing, but that I was attracted by his hats, and wished 
to know the price. He was perfectly civil and good- 
natured, as I always found London shopmen, whether 



392 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN, 

I bought or not ; nor did I ever encounter among 
them either servility or browbeating. He answered, 
with a rueful little Km and smile, "Hi thought so. 
Hi see your 'at was too new for you to want a bother. 
Would you be so good as to let me look hat it, sir ? " 
I doffed and handed it to him. " H'ni ! Lincoln and 
Bennett ! Hi thought so. Hall you swell gents goes 
to them, 'cos they 've got a big name, an' so they 
gits big prices. But there 's bother people knows 
'ow to make a 'at as well as Lincoln and Bennett. 
Look a' that 'un," handing me one of our tiptop 
harticles. Then, with a burst of enthusiasm, '•'•Would 
you be so good as to put on that 'at, sir ? " I com- 
plied. " There ! Hi do think that sets you hoff, 
helegant. Hanythink nobbier Hi never see." As 
the hat was decidedly too small for me, to say noth- 
ing more, I did not agree with him, and set it down 
in silence. " That 'at, sir, 's a harticle Hi 'm pi'oud 
of, an' I '11 set it agen hanythink that liever come 
hout of Lincoln and Bennett's shop." " I beg par- 
don," I said, "but you call at an article; I thought 
it was a preposition." The temptation was irresist- 
ible ; but I did not know what might come of my 
yielding to it, and I prepared for a quick retreat. 
But I was safe in the density of his mental faculties. 
" Proposition, sir ? " said he, after a moment. " I 
'ave n't 'eard hany ; but I shall be 'appy to 'ave one, 
though I could n't put it hany lower to you than wot 
I 'ave." To tell the truth, I felt a little ashamed of 
myself. The man's ignorance was not his fault. 
Putting my own preposition on my head, I bade him 
good-day ; and as I turned the corner — it was the 
next one — I saw him looking after me with the 
bewildei'ed air of one vainly struggling at apprehen- 
sion. 



CHAPTER XVII. 

A CANTERBUEY PILGRIMAGE. 

Most of my readers probably know that the head 
of the Church of England is the Archbishop of Can- 
terbury; but I have been led to believe that many 
intelligent and generally well-informed people, eYen 
in England, do not know why he is so. By the head 
of the church, I mean the sacerdotal head, — the 
Primate, as he is called. The nominal and secular 
head is at present her most gracious royal and im- 
perial majesty Victoria, who holds this position as 
the successor, although not the descendant, of that 
long-suffering and tender- conscienced monarch, 
Henry, the eighth of that name, who was so sorely 
tried by the sex through which came death and all 
our woe, — an assertion for which I hasten to say 
that Moses and Milton are alone responsible. And 
as the afflictions of that exemplary monarch in the 
matter of wives form an important part of the his- 
tory of the Reformation, about which it is becoming 
to all people who would seem well educated to be ex- 
act, I venture to offer a little rhyme, not generally 
known I believe, which will help to keep the facts in 
mind, and be at any time convenient for reference — • 
to those who can remember it : — 

" King Henry the Eighth to six spouses "was wedded : 
One died, one survived, two divorced, two beheaded." 

This is not thoroughly original; it being manifestly 



394 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

framed on the model of " Thirty days bath Septem- 
ber," etc. ; but like that most frequently repeated 
of all English stanzas, to which I confess that I am 
obliged to recur for much-needed assistance at least 
twelve times in every year, it may save many worthy 
peoj)le from being put, by ignorance, to open shame. 

The reasons wbj^ the Archbishop of Canterbury is 
the priestly head of the Church of England are the 
very reasons why I was particular to visit the little 
city from which his see takes its title. Canterbury 
is the cradle of English Christianity ; and not only 
of English Christianity, but of the Christianity of 
the whole Teutonic race, — that great race which has 
done more for morality and for freedom than any 
other known to history, and more for literature and 
for philosophy, although not for the fine arts, than 
any other since the decadence of ancient Greece. It 
may be worth our while to glance at the events which 
gave this place a position so elevated and so extraor- 
dinary. 

Almost all names of places in England have the 
admirable quality of a meaning. They were given 
for a good reason : and that reason, if not apparent 
in their modern clipped and curtailed form, may be 
extracted by a little patience. Very little patience is 
needed in the case of Canterbury, which is merely a 
condensed form of the " Anglo-Saxon " Cantuara- 
byrig ; that is, the burg, or stronghold (" Eine feste 
burg ist unser Gott"), of the men of Kent. Kent 
is the part of Britain which first became English. 
Its position would naturally make it so ; it being that 
part of the island which is nearest to the continent 
of Europe, from which the English or " Anglo- 
Saxon " people came ; and such history as we have 



A canterbuey'pilorimage. 395 

of their migration from the country now known as 
Sc'hleswig-Holstein tells us that in Kent Hengist and 
Horsa made their landing. But the Angles and the 
Saxons did not bring Christianity into Britain. They 
were heathen ; and soon extinguishing a little flame 
of Christianity, of Roman lighting, that they found 
there, they worshiped for centuries the gods whose 
names are upon our lips almost hourly, because they 
are embodied and embalmed in the English names 
of the days of the week, which were respectively 
consecrated to their service. 

The interesting story about the English captives, 
whose fair faces, blue eyes, and long golden hair 
caused the monk Gregory to say of them, " Not An- 
gles, but angels " (non Angli^ sed angeW), — to which 
story I have already referred, as early evidence of 
the beauty of the English race, — has a direct con- 
nection with the christianizing of England, and there- 
fore also with our present subject. Gregory, learning 
that these beautiful Angles were heathen, earnestly 
desired to convert them to Christianity, and set out 
on a mission himself for that purpose ; but he was 
stopped on his way to England, and he turned back 
to Rome, to become afterwards known as Pope Greg- 
ory the Great. But the Pope did not forget the be- 
nevolent scheme of the monk, and he sent as his 
apostle a priest named Augustine, who was after- 
wards known as St. Augustine ; albeit he was not 
a very saintly personage. Augustine, if he should 
make converts, and succeed in establishing a Chris- 
tian church in England, was to be the first Englisli 
bishop and archbishop. But Gregory also intended 
that there should be another archbishop in England, 
one at York. (He knew about as much of Kent and 



896 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

York, and of their relative positions, we may be sure, 
as most English bishops nowadays seem to know of 
New York and Chicago, and probabl}^ supposed them 
to be a few miles asunder). And this doable inten- 
tion of his produced an ecclesiastical complication, 
which brought much trouble to England, ecclesias- 
tical and other. His intention in regard to York was 
the consequence of the fact that the young English- 
men by whom he was so captivated came from Deira, 
in tlie then great province or kingdom of Northum- 
bria, which included what is now Yorkshire. 

It was in A. D. 597 that Augustine set out upon 
the mission that was to have such important results, 
not only in England, but on the continent of Europe 
and in North America. He landed with his ecclesi- 
astical suite on the Isle of Thanet, then as now the 
extreme eastern point of Kent, but then, as not now, 
really an island ; being made so by an estuary formed 
by the sea and the river Stour, upon which the land 
has so encroached during the succeeding centuries 
that it has almost disappeared. The Italian priest 
and his followers disembarked, as Hengist and the 
Danes had disembarked before them, at a place called 
Ebbe's Fleet, a little southwest of Margate. The 
word fleet is Old English for a creek or small shallow 
water, where boats can float. It is preserved in the 
name of Fleet Street in London ; that street having 
been so called because it coasted Fleet ditch, a little 
water-course which in old times had the place now 
held by the Thames, as the chief receptacle of the 
city's sewage. Nor has the name Ebbe's Fleet disap- 
peared in thirteen hundred years, notwithstanding 
that the water which gave it its name was long ago 
displaced by land. Just where Hengist and the 



A CANTERBUEY PILGRIMAGE. 397 

Danes and Augustine landed, on a strip of high 
ground which rises out of tlie marsh, and was plainly 
once a little promontory, is a farm-house, known as 
Ebbe's Fleet. 1 In such records of the past is one of 
the charms of England. 

All students of early English history know that at 
that time Ethelbert, the king of England, had a Chris- 
tian wife named Bertha, the daughter of the king (so 
called) of Paris. There was then no king of France, 
nor for centuries afterward. Ethelbert allowed Ber- 
tha to live as a Christian ; and she worshiped at a 
little chajjel which stood just outside the town of 
Canterbury, and which had been used as a place of 
worship by British Christians. Whether she per- 
suaded her husband to receive Augustine favorably is 
not known ; but he did so receive the missionary, 
and, after a conference Vv^ith him in the open air at 
Thanet, gave him an old heathen temple near Can- 
terbury for temporary use, and at last permitted him 
and his followers to worship with the queen at her 
chapel, which was even then called St. Martin's. 
Erelong Ethelbert yielded to the power of precept 
and example, and received baptism ; and before the 
year was over, on Christmas Day, 597, ten thousand 
Englishmen were baptized, two by two, in the Swale, 
the couples reciprocally immersing one another, at 
the word of command from St. Augustine. How 
many forefathers of those who now call themselves 
" Americans " thus dipped each other at once into 
the Swale and Christianity it may not be beyond the 

1 I make this statement on the authority of Dean Stanley. I did not 
visit Ebbe's Fleet. Dean Stanley, now of Westminster, was once Canon 
of Canterbur3^ a fact to which we owe his interesting Ifistorical Memo- 
rials of the place. 



398 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

power of statistics and tlie law of chances to discover. 
The ro3^al convert now gave Augustine his own pal- 
ace in Canterbury as a dwelling, and an old pagan 
temple hard by for a church, building himself a new 
residence a few miles off, at Reculver. Christianity 
was thus planted in England, and Augustine, the first 
bishop, established his see in Canterbury, where it 
has remained from the year 601 to this day. Thus 
it is that the Archbishop of Canterbury, as the lin- 
eal successor of St. Augustine, is chief priest of the 
Church of England. 

Not only did English Christianity take its rise in 
Canterbury, but, as we have seen, hard by, in that 
part of Kent, was the very beginning of the English 
nation in the first landing there of the Saxons. 
Moreover, its great cathedral was the scene of a po- 
litical murder which was of graver consequence to 
England than any other, even of a royal victim, re- 
corded in her annals, — that of Thomas a Becket, 
Archbishop of Canterbury, who was slain by parti- 
sans of Henry II. for his resistance to the king's en- 
croachments (in the interests of law and of justice) 
upon the privileges of the clergy. Within the walls 
of this noble church lie the remains of the Black 
Prince, whose name and whose glory are knov^^n to 
all school-bred people of English race, even to those 
who are ignorant of his history and of his real char- 
acter. To Canterbury went that train of pilgrims 
whose figures were wrought into an immortal life by 
the first great English poet, in one of the greatest of 
English poems. To Canterbury came Oliver Crom- 
well, England's last real king and last tyrant, and 
bore away from the Black Prince's tomb the sword 
which had pointed the way to victory at Poictiers. 



A CANTERBURY PILGRIMAGE. 399 

There is no place in England, excepting London and 
Westminster, which is so enriched by memories and 
by memorials of the past. And yet I found intelli- 
gent, well-educated men in London and elsewhere, 
not three hours away, who had never seen Canter- 
bury and its great cathedral. I can understand this ; 
for I was myself in England six weeks before I made 
my Canterbury pilgrimage ; and if I had been born in 
England to live there, I too might have postponed 
the journey indefinitely. 

I went to the Rose inn, because I had heard that it 
was clean, comfortable, unpretending, and old-fash- 
ioned. It deserved all those praises. No place open 
to the public could be less like the " American " no- 
tion of a hotel. In the principal street, which is 
narrow, and which was meant to be straight, but 
which happily neither street nor road in England is 
but for a very short distance, the snug hostelry stands, 
distinguished in no way from the other old but not 
antique houses of the neighborhood except by a lan- 
tern over the door and the name of the inn. I went 
in, and found sitting by an inner window of a room 
that opened on one side into the passage-way, and on 
the other into the kitchen, a pleasant-faced woman 
of years between youth and middle age, who asked 
if I would like to have a room. On my answering 
Yes, she said, " Please walk up-stairs, sir, and the 
chamber-maid will show you one." I did so, and the 
maid met me at the first landing, and took me to a 
snug, clean, comfortable room, where my trunk was 
soon brought, and where she quickly returned with 
warm water; and. that was all. Oh, the ease and 
comfort and privacy of these English inns ! — where 
you are not called upon to write your name and ad- 



400 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

dress in a big book for any curious idler to read, and 
any reporter to copy and publish, and bring upon you 
calls when you would be private ; where you do not 
perform all the offices of life, except sleeping and 
dressing, in the eyes of all your fellow lodgers, and 
of half the loungers of the neighborhood ; where you 
do not feel as if the house were a mere continuation 
of the street, except the paving-stones and the carts 
and horses ! They would be improved by " coffee- 
rooms " a little more bright and cheery, — for the cof- 
fee-room of an English inn on a dark, damp day is 
not a place of enlivening and inspiriting influence, — 
and by a little parlor or modest receiving room (as 
unlike as possible that concentration of glare and vul- 
garity known to us as a hotel parlor), in which lodgers 
who have not a sitting-room could receive those whom 
they do not wish to ask into their bedrooms. But 
these are comparative trifles. A man in health who 
could not be contented at the Rose must have in him- 
self the causes of bis discontent. 

The city of Canterbury (city in virtue of its bish- 
op's see) is a small town, irregular in every way, and 
old-fashioned without being very antique. It lacks 
the effect produced, for instance, in Coventry and in 
Chester by houses of the sixteenth and the seven- 
teenth century. Dwelling-houses which are, on their 
outsides at least, more than a hundred or a hundred 
and fifty years old are comparatively rare. But 
nearly the whole town seems to be composed of 
houses of about that age ; and mingled with these 
are the few which are older, and an unusual number 
of old churches and other buildings more or less 
ecclesiastical. These old towns in England had a 
never-failing charm for me ; not because of their an- 



A CANTERBURY PILGRIMAGE. 401 

tiquity, of wliicli I am no blind worshiper, nor because 
of their beauty, for of that they commonly have very 
little, but because of their naturalness. They have 
manifestly grown, and were not made to order. Even 
the streets most nearly straight were plainly once 
paths ; and natural paths, physical or moral, are never 
straight. One house was built in a certain place and 
in a certain way, because its builder chose to build it 
there and in that way ; another was built in another 
place, in another way, because at another time an- 
other man so chose to build it ; another was built be- 
tween these in yet another way, perhaps because its 
builder could do no better. The town does not look 
as if it were put up in sections by contract. There 
is no air of pretense, and the place seems like an ag- 
o;reo;ation of homes. The resulting difference be- 
tween these towns and one in the United States is 
like the difference between a crowd of men, each one 
of whom has his individuality of feature and of ex- 
pression, and an array of pu]3pets or lay figures all 
cast in one mould. 

Over all in Canterbury rise the three towers of the 
great cathedral church, which dominates the city and 
the surrounding country. Seen from a distance, this 
great building seems larger than it does near by. It 
dwarfs the whole city, like a great growth in stone 
rising from amid a little bed of rubble. It is an 
architectural expression of the ecclesiastical suprem- 
acy which it embodies. 

As soon as I could do so I went to the cathedral, 
approaching it through a short, narrow street called 
Mercery Lane, which has its name from the little 
shops which have lined its sides for centuries. I en- 
tered the nave, and walked its whole length beneath 

26 



402 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

its lofty roof all alone. At once it took me captive ; 
it swallowed me np in its immensity. The efTect of 
grandeur is much increased by the elevation of the 
choir to a great height above the floor of the nave, 
from which there is an ascent by a lofty and broad 
flight of steps. As I walked slowly up the nave and 
mounted this majestic stairway, the tones of the 
great organ and the voices of the choristers chanting 
the morning service fell upon my ears, seeming to 
come from the dusky void above my head. I found 
that I could not enter the choir : the grated gates 
were closed. I stood and listened. The singers 
were invisible who were taking part in the worship 
from wdiich I was shut out. Was it only by the gate? 
Should I have worshiped if I had been within ? Could 
I have worshiped even in that sacred place as I should 
hafve done if I had come there when I was a child ? 
Moved by the solemn strains within and the 
thoughts which they awakened in me without, I for- 
got for the moment why I was there. The music 
rose and fell ; it swelled and soared, and died away 
among the lofty arches. Breaking forth anew, it be- 
came a cry for mercy and for salvation, a passionate 
entreaty to be received into the joys of heaven. As 
I leaned against the iron barrier between me and the 
holy place within, tlie tones of the unseen singers 
pierced my heart and seemed to cleave it in sunder. 
But my soul did not answer to them. I knew that I 
was moved only by a sensuous thrill, by the vast and 
solemn gloom, and by the charm of sweet association. 
I felt that there was more between me and those sa- 
cred rites than the iron which stayed my steps. Alas ! 
those bars only figured to me the hard and stern real- 
ities which stood between me and the rites which I 



A CANTERBURY PILGRIMAGE. 403 

had been taught were pledges and a foretaste of the 
heavenly life. I might stand and look across the 
threshold of that paradise ; but from its enjoyment, 
except as an intellectual and sensuous pleasure, al- 
most as an exhibition, I was shut out forever. At 
every note my heart grew sadder, and the music be- 
came to me only the requiem of a buried faith. 

Turning away with a sense of self-inflicted banish- 
ment, I descended the steps and wandered through 
the nave, musing, and oppressed even more by my 
thoughts and by thick-coming memories than by its 
grandeur, or by the sense of loneliness that came 
upon me 'in its vast silence, until the service was 
ended. The gates were opened. A few common- 
place people came out : maiden ladies with umbrellas ; 
matrons with chattering children, already familiar 
with. that which was so strange and impressive to 
me ; a nondescript man or two, one of whom was 
pale and damp and peevish. They had performed 
one duty, and now they went forth to others. I 
watched them as they passed through the door-way 
into the world, and then turned back to make the 
tour of the great church. 

The choir of Canterbury cathedral is more impos- 
ing than that of any other ecclesiastical edifice that 
I ever saw. It combines in a rare degree those two 
great elements of architectural effect, extent and ele- 
vation. It alone is very much larger than our largest 
churches. Its length is one hundred and eighty feet. 
From the steps of the altar you look down the nave 
through a vista of arched stone, which stretches be- 
fore you for more than five hundred feet. The 
grandeur of the elevation of the choir above the 
nave is repeated and enhanced within the choir itself 



404 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

by the elevation of tlie altar, which rises before you 
with a majesty which is almost oppressive. From 
-the first entrance into this noble religious building 
the eye is led upward, and again upward, in long 
reaches of solemn beauty. The light comes to you 
only from above, softened and enriched by the mar- 
velous hues of the stained-glass windows of the clear- 
story. With the light Caen stone of the walls and 
piers and arches is mingled another of a dark, rich 
color, which, warmly tempering the somewhat cold 
gray hue of the former, produces an effect of color all 
the more admirable because it is not excessive and 
does not seem to be elaborate. 

As I stood upon the steps of the altar, I observed 
that a few knots of people here and there in the choir 
began to draw together; and presently a verger in 
his gown, whom they were following, stepped up 
to me and asked if I washed to see the cathedral. 
The other visitors joined themselves to us, and we set 
off upon our round. I shall not describe what I saw, 
nor tell what I was told. To do so would occupy at 
least all the space that I could ask for my whole 
chapter ; and then I should have told no more than 
may be found in a good guide-book. Nor do I hold 
such descriptions in high estimation. They are use- 
ful to those who are just about to see the objects de- 
scribed ; and to those who have seen them they serve 
as aids to i-ecoUection. To all other persons they 
have really little value. 

In the course of three quarters of an hour I had 
stood by the tomb of the Black Prince, and had seen 
hanging over it the surcoat, the helmet, and the 
gauntlets that he wore at Poictiers ; I had seen 
Archbishop Chichely's strange two-storied tomb, on 



A CANTERBURY PILGRIMAGE. 405 

one slab of which he is represented in health, clothed 
in his archiepiscopal robes and wearing his mitre, 
while on the other he is, by his own directions, rep- 
resented in his dying state, attenuated to a skeleton ; 
I had looked with a sentiment of retrospective won- 
der and pity at the stone staircase to a Becket's 
shrine, worn in hollows by the knees of the pilgrims 
who were obliged to ascend it painfully, in the hnm- 
ble attitude of prayer ; I had followed the course of 
the murderers of this arrogant and tyrannical priest 
to the place where they struck him down, and 
had stood over the spot where they scattered his 
brains upon the pavement ; and I had peered through 
the dim light upon the sombre beauty of that crypt, 
distinguished from all others even less by its yaried 
architecture than as the scene of one of the most ex- 
traordinary and yet most characteristic transactions 
of past ages. 

For here, in 1174, two years after a Becket's slay- 
ing, Henry II., in whose interest, although not by 
whose command, the deed was done, did a second 
penance in expiation of that crime and sacrilege. 
After having lived upon bread and water for some 
days, and after walking barefooted to the cathedral, 
where he knelt in the transept of the murder (called 
the martyrdom), he was led into the crypt, where a 
Becket's tomb then was. Upon this he bowed his 
head, and, his lower garments having been removed, 
the king of England, a Plantagenet, received five 
strokes from the rod of each bishop and abbot who 
was present, and three from each of the eighty monks I 
After this he stood the whole night barefooted upon 
the bare ground, resting only against one of the rude 
stone pillars of the crypt; and thus he passed the 



406 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

whole night, fastnig. A belief in the efficacy and the 
merit of such performances did not die out for six 
hundred years ; and it shows us the arrogant, un- 
gainly figure of Samuel Johnson standing in the 
streets of Litchfield, bareheaded and exposed to the 
weather, for hours, in " expiation " of an act of dis- 
respect to his father. Perhaps even yet, among en- 
lightened people who are freed from the sacerdotal 
tyranny to which Henry II. succumbed, there may 
be some who believe that a wrong that they have 
done may be atoned for by suffering on their part 
which can do no good to the person they have 
wronged. To them I would recommend a medita- 
tion in the crypt of Canterbury cathedral. 

I was pleased with my verger, and I found that he 
was not displeased with me. He was a middle-aged 
man, with a fine, intelligent face and a very pleasant 
manner, and he talked well as he led us from one 
spot of interest to another. If he had introduced 
himself to me as the dean, I should have accepted 
him as such without a doubt, and have been perfectly 
satisfied. And yet this man expected a shilling. 
Had it not been for my previous experience, I should 
as soon have thought of offering him broken victuals.^ 
He evidently was pleased with the great interest in 
the cathedral which I could not conceal (and why 
should I have concealed it?), and plainly rejoiced in 
the questions which I asked ; and when I requested 

1 We should not, however, judge him and such as he by our standard in 
this matter. These gratuities are looked upon in the light of honoraria or 
fees, and are reckoned as a part of the regular income of the places to 
which they pertain. A verger receives his shilling just as Mr. Barnum 
receives twenty-five cents for seeing one of his shows, and with no more 
feeling of obligation or dependence. And as to the possible independence 
of a man in such a position, I had an example of that in mj Windsor Cas- 
tle warder. 



A CANTERBURY PILGRIMAGE. 407 

him to tell me where I could find three little arches, 
two of which were pointed and one romid Norman, 
he led me to the spot with alacrity and a face lighted 
up with something like gratified vanity. Well might 
he be proud of his cathedraL But when, on passing 
a stately, elevated seat, half pulpit, half pew, he said, 
" The archbishop's throne when he attends service," 
although I knew that the Archbishop of Canterbury 
is a great ecclesiastical prince, the word throne grated 
on my ears, as I thought of Him who had not where to 
lay his head ; and I thought, too, of the murder done 
in that very church seven hundred years ago, which 
was the bloody end of a strife to determine whether 
— whoever might be king of England — Henry Plan- 
tagenet or Thomas a Becket should be king in Eng- 
land. But as the king came in the end to penance of 
scourging in the crypt, well laid on by priestly hands, 
perhaps throne is t]»e proper word for the seat of a 
Becket's successor. 

After my guide and I had parted at the choir en- 
trance, I went alone through the precincts of the 
cathedral, wandering at my will, inquiring my way, 
and asking information as I needed it ; and always 
receiving the kindest attention, often from persons 
more or less ecclesiastical, to whom I should not have 
ventured to offer a shilling, although I did not tell 
them my name nor ask theirs. In these extensive 
precincts, beautiful buildings in perfect preservation 
are mingled with ruins which have been ruins for 
centuries : there are pillars and arches which form 
aisles that now are roofless and lead no whither ; 
grand gateways, the only remnants of buildings to 
which they were once the mere entrance, and which 
are now put to humble uses ; libraries now in use, 
and the houses of the dean and chapter. 



408 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

As I wandered about I came suddenly upon an ob- 
ject with the forms of which I was familiar, and the 
sight of which had been one of the expected pleasures 
of my visit, the Norman staircase leading up to the 
building known as the King's School. I thought that 
I knew it too well to find anything surprising in it, 
notwithstanding my admiration ; and yet, seeing it 
unexpectedly as I turned a corner, I felt a little shock 
of delight. And why ? Why does that small struct- 
ure give the eye such joy? It is but a porch of 
three round arches resting upon heavy columns, and 
a succession of some five or six small arches supported 
by graduated pillars ; the detail shows little fancy, and 
the workmanship little finish ; but the whole is such 
a beautiful imao-ination that amon^ lovers of archi- 
tecture it is as well known as a perfect poem is in 
the world of literature, or as a masterpiece of musical 
composition, like Beethoven's "'Moonlight Sonata " 
or the Andante of Mozart's quartett in C, is to lov- 
ers of music. Description of it is quite in vain ; for 
a descri]3tion which should be quite correct might, 
like a similar description of a musical composition, 
apply equally well to a work the design and the in- 
forming ideas of which were utterly without beauty. 
That which constitutes the real charm in any work 
of fine art, although its effect may be expressed, can 
never be described by words. 

My next visit was to St. Martin's church, the 
mother church of England, the oldest ecclesiastical 
building in that land, the memories of which go back 
thirteen hundred years, and which bears in its walls 
memorials of a time yet earlier. St. Martui's I found 
perched on a little knoll on the outskirts of the town. 
The knoll has been cut down around the old church, 



A CANTERBURY PILGRIMAGE. 409 

which is left standing upon a slight elevation sup- 
ported by a stone wall. Around it are ancient yew- 
trees ; and its tower is so covered with ivy as to be 
almost wholly concealed. The stem of this gigantic 
parasite is like the trunk of a large tree. I found 
the same great growth at other places. We have no 
notion of the size to which this " vine " attains in 
England. The chancel end of this little church is 
evidently much older than the tower end ; and here 
it was plainly that Bertha worshiped : — not necessa- 
rily within even this older part of the building, but 
where that portion of it stands, and not improbably 
between the foundation walls. The British chapel 
is gone ; but in its place and on its site was built the 
little Early English church which now forms the 
chancel of St. Martin's. Its walls are composed in 
part of the material of the walls of its predecessor ; 
red Roman tiles being built into it freely with the 
rubble and shale and mortar. 

After I had looked at the outside of this venerable 
memorial of English Christianity alone to my con- 
tent, I made inquiries for the key, and was directed 
to one of a row of small houses not far off. Thither 
I went, and found a kindly woman with two or three 
children around her, who each accepted a penny with 
round-eyed joy. The eldest was sent off after the 
goodman, while I sat talking with the goodwife in the 
little parlor. She was such a comfortable, cheery, 
simple creature, so far from pretending to be any- 
thing bat what she really was, that I liked her, and 
homely as she was in feature, I did not think her hus- 
band was long in coming with the key. The inte- 
rior of the church contains little to gratify the eye. 
It has none of the charms of St. Andrew's, near 



410 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

Windsor, or even of tlie characteristic evidences of 
antiquity which I found at the old church at Har- 
bledown, which I visited also on this day. In appear- 
ance it is the least interesting of these three churches, 
which are the oldest in England, and of which it is 
the senior. There is a clever but shabby attempt, by 
a rude stone coffin and a Latin inscription, to produce 
the impression that Bertha's body was entombed 
there ; but it lies in the great cathedral. A rude 
font is shown as that in which Ethelbert was bap- 
tized. It is certainly of very great antiquity ; but I 
observed that the upper part of it was certainly Nor- 
man work, although the lower seemed to me to be 
Saxon ; an opinion in which I afterwards found that 
I had but coincided with others much better able to 
form an opinion on such a point ; and indeed I could 
have expected nothing else. Even the lower part, 
however, I am inclined to think is of a period much 
later than Ethelbert's reign. Moreover, I suspect 
that he, instead of being baptized in full dress and 
from a font, as the friends of Voltaii'e's Ingenu ex- 
pected that their young convert would be, received 
the rite in the waters of the Stour in that perfectly 
natural and unadorned condition in which the Huron 
(who had read only the New Testament) awaited it 
on the banks of a similar rivulet, while his priest- 
taught friends and sponsors fretted for him at the 
church in their best bibs and tuckers. 

The modern pilgrim to Canterbury, if he is at all 
interested in ancient ecclesiastical architecture and in 
the early history of England, should not neglect to 
visit Harbledown. It is but two miles away, and the, 
view of the cathedral from the road on the return is 
alone well worth the little journey. The old village, 



A CANTERBURY PILGRIMAGE. 411 

apparently no larger than it was twelve hundred years 
ago, lies in a hollow, and is now seen by the traveler 
and now hidden from him, as the road rises and falls 
with the nndulation of the country. Chaucer's pil- 
grims passed through it ; and this effect of its posi- 
tion is the origin of the whimsical perversion of its 
name by which the poet refers to it. 

" Wot ye not wher there stent a litel town, 
Which that i-cleped is Bob-up-an-down, 
Under the Ble in Canterbury way? " i 

(Prol. to the Manciple's Tale, 1. 1.) 

1 The origin of this perversion has not been pointed out, I believe, by 
any of the editors of Chaucer. Indeed, one of the latest and most emi- 
nent of them gravely remarks, " I cannot iind a town of that name in any 
map ; but it must have lain between Boughton, the place last mentioned, 
and Canterbury." The only place between Boughton .and Canterbury is 
Harbledown, the name of which is easily, naturally, almost inevitably, cor- 
rupted into Hobble-down, a form of it which I heard there, and which is 
itself suggestive of a jocose perversion. But besides this. Hob is one of 
the nicknames of Robert, the other being Bob. With these suggestions it 
would have been strange if the little town which seemed to rise and fall 
had not been called Bob-up-an-down by rustic wits six or eight hundred 
years ago. The Ble is the wooded hill of Ble or Blean which rises just 
above Harbledown. 

This note brought me the following interesting letter from a far-away 
writer, whom I have not the pleasure of knowing. My readers, I am sure, 
will thank me for giving them the opportunity of reading it. 

Oallao, Peru, June 6, 1880. 

Dear Sir, — I have just read joxvc Canterbury Pilgrimage in the 
April number of the Atlantic Monthly with a great deal of interest, — the 
interest of one who knows ever}' inch of the ground. 

M\' object in dropping you this note is to say that as far as verifj-ing 
the locality of Chaucer's Bob-up-an-down I believe I am the only one who 
ever attempted practically to solve the difficulty: I have ivalked all the 
old roads between Faversham and Canterbury in search of Bob, and (I 
believe) I found it under the name of Up and Down. In these days of 
blockade and frequent bombardments I have no books within reach, but if 
you can refer to the Athenceum of December, 1868, or, better still, to the 
temporary Preface to the Chaucer Society's Six-Text Edition of the poet's 
works, you will find a short account of my rambles. I hold that Chaucer's 
pilgrims did not pass through Harbledown at all 1 Excuse me pointing 
out the existence of "Up and Down," as your note on page 532 seems to 
take it for granted that Bob-up-an-down is a perversion of Harbledown 
Yours with much respect, J. M. Cowper. 



412 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

Here Laiifranc founded a lazar house or hospital, and 
the hospital is still there, although it has been twice 
rebuilt ; but the old church or chapel, where service 
is performed once a week, stands nearly as it was 
originally built, somewhat dilapidated by time, but 
little injured by restoration. As I neared the village 
I asked one or two persons that I met for the old 
church there (I preferred to go about thus, inquiring 
my way and talking with the people), and I was di- 
rected to a church upon a little hill, which was in- 
deed an ancient and an interesting building ; but 
after a brief examination of it I was dissatisfied both 
with its appearance and its position, and I learned 
afterwards that, venerable as it was, it lacked six 
hundred years of the age of that which I was seek- 
ing ! 

The ground about here is very irregular, and at 
one place the road is split into two parts, one of 
which, used only by wayfarers on foot, passes over 
an elevation, from which there is a steep descent to 
the part used by carriages. As I walked along the 
lower road, a carpenter, with his tools over his shoul- 
der, called down to me, and asked me to please to 
tell him where Mr. Pelburn lived. With malice pre- 
pense I made him repeat his request; for I always 
enjoyed these inquiries put to me in places where I 
found myself for the first time, — places three thou- 
sand miles from that where I and my kindred had 
been born and lived for more than two centuries. 
They began, these inquiries, before I had been on 
English soil two days. In Chester, the da}^ after my 
arrival, I was driven, by a heavy shower, under an 
old pent-house, where I was soon joined by a man 
who was evidently a gentleman, and one who I con- 



A CANTERBURY PILGRIMAGE. 413 

jectured from the cut of his jib was a " horsey " 
squire. We chatted as the rain poured down ; and 
when the clouds began to break a groom came down 
the street on a fine spirited liorse, which he checked 
and irritated by his imj)atient handling. My tem- 
porary companion, who had received with favor a re- 
mark that I made upon the horse's clean fetlocks and 
the fine fall of his haunches, and who fretted almost 
as much as the poor beast did under his rider's irri- 
tating hand, presently broke out to me, " Now, sir, 
if that was my horse, I should dismount that fellow, 
and discharge him on the spot ; would n't you ? " I 
assented. By this time the rain had stopped, and he, 
preparing to go on his way, said, " And now, would 
you be kind enough to tell me the way to " — I for- 
get where. I answered, " I would with pleasure, sir, 
but I 'm an entire stranger in the country. I arrived 
from America but yesterday.' He turned upon me 
a look of puzzlement and wonder, hesitated a mo- 
ment, and then bade me good-morning. It was an 
early beginning of a series of similar experiences. 
— But I am far away from Harbledown. 

I found the hospital and the old church sooner than 
I fear my carpenter found Mr. Pelburn. An old man 
was at work in a sort of garden in front of the hos- 
pital. I asked him where I should find the key of 
the church. He looked me full in the face, but with- 
out any expression of intelligence, and bawled out, 
" I can't hear a word you say ! I 'm as deaf as a 
stone. But I know what you want. Just knock at 
that door," and he pointed to one of two or three in 
the hospital. 

I remark here that I found many more deaf people 
in England than I ever met in America. I have re- 



414 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

marked before upon the greater number of rheumatic 
and otherwise disabled old people that I saw there. 
I was soon in the old church. It is no larger upon 
the ground than a good-sized country school-house, 
but it is very interesting. The pillars and arches on 
one side are Norman ; on the other, Early English. 
The roof is open timbered, like that of St. Andrew's, 
but much ruder and heavier. Some pillars are round, 
some square, and the capitals have ornaments which 
brought to mind those in Saxon missals. On the wall 
on one side are the shadowy remains of an ancient 
painting, in which the ghostly figures, life-sized, of a 
king and a bishop may be discerned. No place that 
I saw in England took me quite so far back into the 
past. Here, indeed, I seemed to have got before the 
Conqueror, and among my forefathers whom he found 
in England when he and the rabble of fierce robbers 
whom he had sharked" up landed there and fought 
and took possession. How did I know but that upon 
the floor where I was standing some man or woman 
whose blood was flowing in my veins had knelt a 
thousand years ago ? It was more than possible. 

In the hospital are some relics ; but in those I felt 
little interest, and I was soon on my way back to 
Canterbury, where I passed the rest of the day in 
wandering from one old building or quaint nook to 
another. I did not undertake to " do " the town sys- 
tematically ; and here as elsewhere I avoided profes- 
sional guides and eschewed guide-books. 

As I was walking about the town at night, I came 
upon a strange sight. I stood upon an elevated 
sti"eet, and looked down upon one lower ; which, in- 
deed, was rather a small open place than a street. 
There I saw an assemblage of large wagons, most of 



A CANTERBURY PILGRIMAGE. 415 

them covered ; and there were some booth-like stands, 
built or in building. Here and there were lights ; 
and figures were moving about in the darkness witli 
lanterns. As I leaned against a railing and looked 
down upon this theatrical little spectacle, I turned to 
a man who had taken a place beside me, and asked 
him what this was. He told me that it was the be- 
ginning of the preparations for a fair, which was to 
take place in a day or two. The fair used to be an 
important event, but its interest had diminished, and 
only the lowest orders of people took any part in it. 
By his speech and his manner, and a fustian coat he 
wore (I could not see his face, the night was so dark ; 
and, besides, he kept looking straight before him), I 
discovered that he was a respectable artisan, or per- 
son in that condition of life, and we soon fell into 
talk together. 

I found him intelligent and even thoughtful. The 
hoarse voices of men and the shriller tones of women 
speaking in strange accents came up to us from the 
lights and the wagons. I asked him who these peo- 
ple were, and where they came from. He did not 
know. They were n't Canterbury folk ; they came 
from the country around, no one knew whence; some 
of them from far enough away. " It 's sad to think, 
sir, that there must be such people in a country like 
ours ; that they must live, and that they will, one 
way or another." The tone of his voice was more 
monotonous than that of most Englishmen : it was 
the monotone of sadness. He seemed willing to talk, 
and I led him on. He was evidently oppressed by 
desponding thought, and his voice and manner suited 
the gloaming, gray-hued darkness. He was well 
enough to do himself, he said, and was always com- 



416 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

fortable, and had a pound or two laid by for a rainy 
day ; but lie plainly brooded over the condition of 
those who were not comfortable, and who had no 
pound or two, and could n't get even shillings. 
" What is to become of them, sir? " he said. " There 
are so many of them ; and there are more every 
year." He always said "them," as if he were not 
thinking of himself or of his own. " It 's something 
that gentlemen like you, sir, know nothing about, ex- 
cept what you see in the newspapers; but I 'm nearer 
to it, and I see it for myself. They call 'em danger- 
ous classes ; but they 're dangerous because they 're 
poor ; and if there were n't people, many of them, so 
much richer than they, there would be nobody to be 
in danger." I asked him if he thought there was any 
danger to the government. " Oh, no, sir ; how could 
tliat be in England ? The government 's well enough. 
It 's a good government; and an Englishman 's a free 
man, and always has the law on his side. And there 
must be i-ich people and poor people ; and lords, too, 
for the matter of that. I don't mind there being 
lords. And I know that what a man gets honestly 
be 's a right to keep, little or much. But what 's to 
become of the people that get nothing, — not enough 
to eat ? And there 's so many of them, — so many." 
I asked bim if he thought the matter would be helped 
by taking the land from the great land-holders and 
giving it to the people. " Lord bless you, sir, no ; 
leastways only for a little while. Some people ivill 
get poor ; and if a man has a little land and no 
money, he '11 sell his land; he must; and the men 
that have land and money too will buy more land. 
You can't stop that." Alas ! I thought, as be uttered 
this truism ; this poor, sad-hearted fellow sees the one 



A CANTERBURY PILGRIMAGE. 417 

inevitable law, — to Mm that liath shall be given, and 
from him that hath not shall be taken away even that 
which he seemeth to have ; and remembering that 
those who had least money always, as a class, had 
the most children, I could say nothing to encourage 
him. I suggested emigration ; but he replied, " Yes, 
sir, that 's all very well, although it 's a hard thing 
for a man to go away from the place he was born in. 
But to emigrate, a man must have some money; and 
I 'm thinking about the people that have n't enough 
to last from day to day ; and England 's full of them, 
and is getting fuller and fuller every year." He had 
never heard of Malthas or of Ricardo, and Mrs. Be- 
sant's little book was not yet published ; but he was 
plainly in sympathy with them all. Our talk became 
more desultory, and it was growing late. I bade him 
good-night. We had touched the gravest question of 
the day for England, the crucial question of the 
time, and we parted without having seen each other's 
faces. We were one to the other only a voice speak- 
ing out of the darkness. 

The next day I went again to the cathedral. The 
gloomy sky of the night had harbingered a heavy 
mass of clouds which were now descending in a co- 
pious but fine and gentle rain. The cathedral was 
deserted. Even the verger was not there. He was 
represented by his daughter, a pretty, slender girl. 
He had evidently remembered my interest when he 
went home ; for she stepped up to me, and asked with 
a little emphasis, " Would you like to see the cathe- 
dral again, sir ? " I said yes, of course ; and she 
went with me to the gate of the choir, which she 
opened. All at once the wish arose to be there with- 
out even her attendance (there was not another per- 

27 



418 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

son in sight), and I asked lier, with no expectation of 
consent, if she could not let me go in by myself. She 
looked at me a moment with sweet, steady blue eyes, 
and kindly said, " I think I may let you go, sir." 
She shut the gate behind me. As I turned away I 
heard the key creak and the bolt shot. Then a great 
silence fell upon me ; I walked slowly on until I stood 
before the high altar ; and there I was, alone in that 
dim magnificence. 

I made little use of my liberty. I was not there to 
mouse among antiquities, nor to study architecture. 
Details seemed petty to me, enveloped in that vast- 
ness, and whelmed in the flood of those associations. 
I did go to the Black Prince's tomb, and, although I 
am no relic-monger, as I stood by it I longed to touch 
one of those gauntlets. To clasp even that glove 
would have done something toward bridging the gap 
of five centuries, and placing me by Edward's side at 
Poictiers. I wish that I had asked that blue-eyed 
girl if I might do so. I verily believe the good creat- 
ure would have helped me to a ladder. But I soon 
wandered back to the great altar, and sat down upon 
the steps. The day was dark, and notwithstanding 
the pale color of the walls the vast space was filled 
with the dusk of twilight. I did not people this 
grand gloom with figures ; and indeed I doubt if that 
is ever done by any one ; but I did think, as on the 
day before I could not have thought, of all the much 
good and the little ill to me and mine of which that 
noble church was a sign and a witness. Here Chau- 
cer's pilgrims came ; but what was their pilgrimage 
to mine ? They made a three or four days' journey 
to do reverence, for their own profit, to the tomb of 
a crafty, ambitious churchman : I had come three 



A CANTERBURY PILGRIMAGE. 419 

thousand miles to stand upon the spot where my peo- 
ple were born to civilization and baptized into Chris- 
tianity. But for what happened here and hard by I 
should have been, not a savage, indeed, nor a heathen, 
because the world has taken all men on in the course 
of thirteen hundred years, but something other than 
I am ; and I fear not something better. For me 
there might have been no Alfred, no Chaucer, no 
Wicliife, no Sidney, no Bacon, no Shakespeare, no 
Milton, no English Bible, no Bunyan, no habeas cor- 
pus, no Bill of Rights, no English law ; and what a 
man is, who does more than eat and sleep and wear 
apparel out, depends hardly more upon the nature 
that he has inherited from his forefathers than upon 
what they did for him. A man is a result, — result 
of forces which were tending toward him centuries 
before he appeared ; a result over which his own will 
and his own work have but a modifying influence. 
And, thus sitting alone in Christ Church at Canter- 
bury, I felt that I was near what was for me, except 
as a mere animal, the beginning of all things, — cer- 
tainly the beginning of all things good. 

But I was to leave the town that afternoon, and 
calling my pretty portress I walked with her for a 
little while under the gray arches, and then said 
good-by. At the R,ose, when I told my friend who 
sat by the window that I was going directly, and by 
such a train, she said, " Oh, I 'm sorry ; our 'bus 
does n't go to that train." I then asked her to get 
me a fly. "Oh, no, sir," she said, "no need of that. 

I '11 send to the [naming another inn] and get 

them to send their 'bus here for you. Cost you only 
sixpence, sir." Did any one of ray readers ever have 
his sixpences, or even his dollars, looked after so care- 



420 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

fully at a hotel in " America " ? After a cheery 
good-by from this good housekeeper, I got into the 
rival 'bus, and was soon at the station. Not until I 
had bought my ticket, did I discover that I had left 
my hat at the Rose. I had put on my traveling hat 
in my room, and in my haste had forgotten my chim- 
ney-pot. It was the identical preposition which had 
excited the professional jealousy of the Surrey hat- 
ter. I could not do without it. Looking at my 
watch, I found that I had twelve minutes before the 
arrival of my train. I hailed the fly with the best- 
looking horse, and told the driver, " Double fare to 
get me to the Rose and back again, for the next train." 
We dashed through old Coventry at a pace that would 
have astonished Chaucer's Prioress, and did somewhat 
alarm some good Kentish women. At the inn my 
hurried entrance caused great surprise ; but I had 
hardly said what brought me, when the chamber-maid 
flew past me, and, shooting up-stairs like an arrow 
feathered with petticoats, in an instant she met me 
with the hat in her hand. She had no shilling to ex- 
pect, and I no time to think of giving her one. I 
jumped for my fly, and was set down at the station 
just as the train was coming in ; and in five minutes 
I was steaming off to Rochester. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

JOHN BULL. 

As I was taking luncheon at a London club, and 
trying to fix my attention upon a soup for wliich its 
kitchen has a singular reputation, I was conscious 
that a gentleman who was passing my table paused ; 
a hand was lightly laid upon my shoulder, and I 
heard the salutation, "Plow are you?" with that up 
and down and up again inflection of the voice upon 
the three words which makes the greeting so cheery 
from English lips. I turned my full face to the 
speaker, and for a moment we looked straight into 
each other's eyes ; then he stepped back, saying, " I 
— I beg pardon ; I was mistaken." In that moment 
of mutual scrutiny, although I had never seen him 
before, I had recognized the fine, sagacious face of 

Sergeant , one of the leaders of the British bar ; 

but in his face there was only blankness, astonish- 
ment, and confusion. 

The incident impressed itself upon me not only or 
chiefly because a like mistake in regard to me had 
been made twice before in England, but because Ser- 
geant 's face was familiar to me from a good 

photograph I had had for several years at home, and 
because in considering it I had been struck with its 
conformity in feature and expression to a common 
New England type. And yet a more thoroughly 
English face could not be found between John o' 



422 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

Groat's and Land's-End. It was not round and rosy, 
nor was it at all bluff, but rather long or longish ; 
the cheeks not full and witli little color, but that 
healthy ; the nose aquiline ; the mouth not small, 
but well shaped, with mobile lips ; the chin firm ; 
the forehead high, and rather narrow than broad. 
In brief, it was a face as unlike that of " John Bull " 
as a human face could well be ; and yet, as I have 
already said, one more thoroughly English could not 
well be found. And here was a typical Englishman 
taking an unmitigated Yankee, not one of whose 
forefathers had been in England for two hundred 
and forty and odd years, for another Englishman, 
his familiar friend, and the latter recognizing the 
typical Englishman's face as one known to him for 
its New England form and favor. As types will sur- 
vive long under strange skies, and even after disap- 
pearing for some two or three generations will break 
forth again, this was not at all out of the natural 
course of things. The significant fact in the inci- 
dent was that this New England face on a London 
barrister's shoulders was the typical face that has 
ruled, although it has not reigned, in England for 
centuries, and yet that it is absolutely unlike the 
face which (who can tell why or how ?) has been 
thrust upon the world, nay, accepted by English- 
men, as the characteristic English face, — the face of 
" John Bull." 

Now it is with careful consideration and after 
examination of the subject that I say that one of the 
rarest men in the England of to-day is John Bull, and 
that in the England of the past he was almost un- 
known. But we all know him well. He began to 
appear in caricature about a hundred years ago ; a 



JOHN BULL. 423 

huge, broad-backed, big-bellied, uncouth, stolid, beef- 
witted animal, as incapable of thought or high dar- 
ing, not to say of poetry, philosophy, statesmanship, 
or chivalry, as a fatted calf. Nevertheless such has 
been the creature set up as the type of the people 
which has produced Sidney and Spenser and Shake- 
speare and Bacon and Cecil and Newton and Nelson 
and Napier, — men who were only the first among a 
throng of others of their kind, and " John Bull " is 
soberly regarded by half the world, England in- 
cluded, as the type of the people which has assumed 
his name. There was never a more absurd misrepre- 
sentation, except in the typical Yankee of the British 
stage, which our own caricaturists — if we have any 
who may be rightly called our own — .have in like 
manner adopted, thereby giving to a ridiculous libel 
a semblance of authority and perpetuation. 

John Bull may of course be found in England, 
but his appearance there, like that here of him who 
is strangely called the typical " American," always 
occasions remark, and of a character somewhat jocose 
and disparaging. I have observed that if one Eng- 
lishman speaks of another as " a real John Bull " 
it is generally with a smile, and that the real John 
is sure to be in a somewhat lower social position than 
the speaker. Whence comes this coarse, obtrusive 
figure, elbowing his way before his betters, to thrust 
himself forward as the most English of Englishmen ? 
He has no place in England's history, even in the 
history of the English people. His face and figure 
do not appear in the throng of those whose linea- 
ments, either because they were men of mark, or in 
many cases, perhaps in most, merely because they 
were possessors of English land, have been handed 



424 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

down to us on canyas. John Bull's face does not look 
upon posterity from England's long gallery of por- 
traits until within the last century ; and even in that 
period he appears but rarely. Turn over the copious 
collections of engraved portraits of Englishmen from 
the times of the Wars of the Roses, in the throes 
of which modern England had its birth ; wander 
through the oak-carved rooms and raftered halls 
from which ancestral Englishmen gaze down in still 
amazement upon their successors, not always their 
descendants, and you will see that John Bull, unlike 
Napoleon, was not an ancestor. Nor does the type 
of which he may be accepted as the caricature ap- 
pear ; except, indeed, with such rarity of occurrence 
and vagueness of conformity as might be found in 
the pictured memorials of any people. John Bull as 
we hear him described and see him represented now 
is a production of the coarse caricaturists with pen 
and pencil of the last century, and he has been 
thoughtlessly adopted by their successors and by the 
public for which they have worked ; the adoption 
being favored by the fact that it took place at a 
period when England was reaching the pinnacle of 
her military, naval, and commercial eminence, and 
when her lower-middle classes, in which J. B. is 
found, were rising to political importance. 

This I know : that in no English home into which 
I was admitted, whether a peasant's cottage or a 
" great house," did I find John Bull, either as 
host or guest. I met him neither at Oxford nor at 
Cambridge, as don or undergraduate, nor at the Inns 
of Court. He never brought me my chop in London 
nor waited on me at a country house. I did see 
him, however, from time to time, but very rarely. I 



JOHN BULL. 425 

met him on the top of an omnibus, in a grill-room, 
as one of the magnates of a knot of suburban villas, 
in the coffee-room of a provincial inn, and once in 
the pit of a theatre, where he was accompanied by 
the dreadful female of his own species, for whom he 
went out and brought in food, as became an animal 
ferus natures : and very odd he and she looked there 
in full evening dress. 

As to his make and his manner, who needs to be 
told them ? He is ungainly, with too much solid fat 
for ease of movement ; grace is beyond his appre- 
hension ; he knows not what it is. He is red of 
face, and often of whisker ; and his big mouth is 
oftener open than shut, even when he is not engaged 
in the serious occupation of putting something into 
it, or in the rarer employment of speaking. His 
reason is an oath or a bet ; his wit a practical joke ; 
his merriment a horse-laugh ; his most powerful ar- 
gument a clenched fist. In John Bull there seems to 
be embodied a certain element of rudeness which has, 
by time and circumstance and change of clime, been 
bred out of the English blood in this country. It is 
that element of character which makes some English- 
men not only use force brutally, but even submit to 
it when it is so used with effect. John Bull will 
thrash you if he can, and make you do his dirty 
work ; but if you can thrash him, he will submit 
and do yours, shake hands, and bear no malice. He 
fights to try who is the best man ; and the best man, 
not right, is to rule. 

It is this element of character which is the stable 
foundation of fagging at the public schools. The 
small boys and the new boys must submit to the 
big boys and the old boys, and fag for them, simply 



426 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

because those are small and new, and these are big 
and old. Hence the cruel floggings and " tundings " 
which make the blood of other folk to boil within 
them. The female Bull is not without this trait of 
coarseness. Flogging seems to be the most dearly 
cherished privilege among parents, even the mothers, 
of the John Bull class. Some years ago, when there 
was a protest made in the London papers against 
flogging girls, sundry British matrons, glowing with 
virtuous indignation, rushed into print, and to the 
rescue, and told with unction how they had stripped 
and flogged their daughters, marriageable girls, and 
with what good effect ; for, marvelous to tell, the 
girls submitted. And an English lady whom I 
know well told another whom I know better how 
her uncle, a peer, came one morning into her bed- 
room, as he was going to ride to hounds, and making 
her get up, flogged her with his hunting-whip as she 
stood in her night-gown ; and this because she would 
let her cousin, his son, make love to hei', to the pi-os- 
pective peril of some family arrangements. She 
was an orphan and brotherless ; and therefore let 
us hope, and be willing to believe, it was that this 
coroneted Bull had not his nose brought to the 



1 This stoiy, on its first publication, was made the subject of indignant 
and incredulous comment in England. It was told to one of my own fani- 
ily by the ladj' herself, who added that one cut of her uncle's whip left a 
weal still visible when she was in evening dress. Moreover, she added 
that her husband (the cousin for whom she was whipped, and to whom she 
had clung) himself beat her before she had been his wife one year, and 
while she was bearing his first child. It dit'd, and its father also died, 
soon after its birth ; and she, who would have been otherwise well pro- 
vided for as its mother, was left in a state of poor dependency. In the 
Contem2Mra7-y Review, Frances Power Cobbe writes as follows: "Wife- 
beating exists in the upper and middle classes rather more, I fear, than 
is generally recognized; but it rarely extends to anything beyond aa 



JOHN BULL. 427 

As to the cruel and indiscriminate flogging in 
public schools, Fielding's wise head and kind heart 
protested against it more than a century ago. " Dis- 
cipline, indeed ! '' says Parson Adams. " Because 
one man scourges twenty or thirty boys more in a 
morning than another, is he therefore a better dis- 
ciplinarian ? " True, scourging is a very ancient and 
much-honored form of educational discipline ; for 
have we not Butler's protest against innovation in 
this respect? Parson Adams himself scourged boys 
who could not say the catechism. It is the accept- 
ance of this rule of life by the sc6urged as well as 
by the scourgers, and the willingness of fathers that 
their boys should be beaten by any one who is able 
to do it, from master and usher down to the school 
bully and the town bully, which is particularly 
John Bullish. The father would be delighted if 
his boy could and should thrash the bully ; but the 
right of the bully to thrash if he can, and to have 
his own way because he is the best man, he rarely 
ventures to dispute. The right of might and the 
laws which might establishes are not to be denied. 

The laws of the hunting-field are too much those of 
English society. It was perfectly in keeping with 
this spirit that recently an anti-vivisection meeting 
was broken up by two or three hundred medical stu- 
dents, and such like, who marched into the lecture- 
room of Mr. Spurgeon's Tabernacle, yelling, blowing 
trumpets, ringing bells, breaking the chairs and the 

occasional blow or two of a not dangerous kind. In his apparently 
most ungovernable rage, the gentleman or tradesman somehow manages 
to bear in raind the disgrace he will incur if his outbreak be betrayed 
by his wife's black eye or broken arm, and he regulates his cuffs and 
kicks accordingly." — It is not with pleasure that I remark upon this dis- 
tinguishing trait of John Bullish — I do not say English — character. 



428 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

chandeliers, and at last fighting with the police. 
They were presumably educated men, students of 
science; but because the call for the meeting spoke 
of vivisection as cruel and demoralizing, they broke 
it up by brute force, and gave a high finish to their 
proceedings by lighting their pipes and cigars and 
puffing the smoke into the faces of the ladies who 
were present. John Bull was present in large force 
on that occasion. 

On the other hand, the same sort of Englishman 
bears himself with a deference to rank and wealth 
which is unknown not only here, but on the continent 
of Europe, except perhaps in Germany. John Bull, 
it has been said, "loves a lord; " but to be loved the 
lord must have lordly belongings and surroundings. 
The respect is for gross material advantage, of which 
the title is a sign and token. A peer may become 
poor, but poor men are not raised to the peerage. 
The rich lord rules not only the land but the heart of 
England. At this very day and under the last re- 
form, which distributes the suffrage so widely, even 
the liberal London " Spectator " tells us that the " con- 
stituencies decline to send up young men unless they 
are eldest sons." ^ 

The diffusion of knowledge and the political ele- 
vation b}^ which that has been followed seem to have 
increased rather than diminished the numbers of the 
abject worshipers of mammon. True, the worship 
is merely a manifestation of selfishness ; but in Eng- 
land it takes on the form of a religion, and seeks to 
invest itself with a sort of social mystery. The 
" Saturday Review," apropos of the loathsome Bagot 
will case, says that one point brought out by it is 

1 May 9, 1878. 



JOHN BULL. 429 

" the slavish adulation accorded nowadays to mere 
wealth." "If," the reviewer continues, "a man at- 
tains to the dignity of a ' nugget ' his roughness is 
pardoned, or lauded as an absence of affectation ; his 
vulgarity treated as naturalness or eccentricity; and 
his vices slurred over, or attributed to defective educa- 
tion." But this is nothing new in England ; it is no 
peculiar mark of nowadays. In the very book and in 
the very chapter from which I have just brought 
Fielding to witness, he makes Joseph ask, " What 
inspires a man to build fine houses, to purchase fine 
furniture, pictures, clothes, and other things, but an 
ambition to be respected more than other people ? " 
Nor indeed is this particular kind, of respect peculiar 
to the English or to any other people, or to any pe- 
riod. The Apostle James, in rebuking the early 
Christians for showing respect to a man who came 
among them with a gold ring, in goodly apparel, and 
disrespect to the poor man in vile raiment, merely 
touched a spot of moral weakness which seems to 
have appeared at the earliest stage of man's develop- 
ment, — possibly before ; for is there not a snobbish- 
ness in dogs ? And yet the dog may have caught 
this from his human companion. The wolf, who we 
are told is his ancestor, is pure from it. In his eat- 
ing he is no respecter of persons. The only pecul- 
iarity of English society in respect to this feeling is 
a sort of declarative pompous deification of material 
wealth, without any of that attempted graceful mit- 
igation of the grossness of the adulation which ap- 
pears more or less among almost all other peoples. 

But in England, more than in most other countries, 
riches impose duties and responsibilities. There a 
man of wealth, especially of hereditary wealth, can- 



430 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

not hold up his head among men unless he makes 
some use of his money that will benefit others, - — 
at least "the county" and "the parish." He may 
do it in a reasonable and benevolent way, or he may 
keej) hounds, or at least subscribe to the hunt; but 
something he must do, or be set down as a shabby 
fellow. To pass over the more serious responsibil- 
ities of this kind, he is expected to give with his own 
hand, if he is anything less than a duke. In Eng- 
land, noblesse oblige means that he who has pounds 
must give shillings. Largesse has dwindled into 
the less mouth-filling tip ; but the duty remains. I 
sought in vain the line that defined the man who did 
expect a shilling from him who did not. It was easy 
enough to find those who did not, although much 
easier to find those who did ; but to discover exactly 
where the expectation began was very difiicult. And 
a repetition of the silver sweetener, corresponding to 
the barrister's " refresher," is expected to be more 
frequent than I was prepared to find it. There is a 
butler in Lancashire who, after much not unrewarded 
attentiveness, parted from me with a cold, reproach- 
ful stare of ducal dignity, which when I had got a 
little distance from the house I felt sure was because 
of some neglect of what was becoming on ray part. 
I was almost tempted to turn back and beg his for- 
giveness with the acceptance of a half-sovereign. In 
my lonely moments and waking hours that man's 
lofty look of disappointment troubles my memory. 
In truth, I believe that he was more disappointed in 
me than in the loss of a "vail." He had thought 
better of me. As to the two classes, of expectants 
and non-expectants, it, would perhaps be safe to as- 
sume that tips are not looked for by peers and per- 



JOHN BULL. 431 

sonal friends; but — safest rule of all — when in 
doubt give the shilling. 

Perhaps one element of John BuUism is that self- 
assertion, personal and national, which is certainly a 
very marked trait of English character. It is not 
new. Sir William Temple says somewhere that no 
people so abounds in originals as the English. Doubt- 
less tiuie and the drift of modern society have some- 
what done away with this tendency to eccentric ex- 
crescence in England ; but it exists there now to a de- 
gree which makes Sir William Temple's remark still 
hold good. They have " characters " in England. 
Everywhere they may be found ; but they naturally 
come to the surface more in small communities, — 
provincial towns and villages. In these places, char- 
acters — men who dare to be peculiar, eccentric — 
are known to almost all the townsfolk, and are al- 
lowed to have their way, if their way is harmless, 
even if they are poor ; if they are rich, whether or 
no. We have not these characters. There used to 
be some in the New England villages, but they have 
mostly if not entirely disappeared, and we are all now 
ground down into the pulp of average. 

It is this element of self-assertion that makes John 
Bull a grumbler even when he is good-natured at bot- 
tom. He does not shrink from letting you know just 
what he wants, and that what he wants he expects, 
particularly if you have taken his money. This is so 
general a habit and so well established a privilege 
that those who do give anything for money look for 
some grumbling, not only as a matter of course but 
as a guide. I had been little more than a week at 
my lodgings in London, where my breakfast was 
served to me by the lodging-house keeper, at her dis- 



432 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WrrHIN. 

cretion, when the maid said one morning, as she went 
out with the tray, " I 'm afraid we shan't satisfy you, 
sir, with your breakfast." I told her that the break- 
fasts were very good; that tea and eggs and bacon 
and fish and muffins and marmalade were a breakfast 
good enough for any man, and quite all I wished to 
pay for. "Yes, sir," she replied, "but you never 
grumble about anything you have, and so we don't 
know how to please you." Could this trait of char- 
acter have had better illustration than in such a dis- 
appointed groping for it as a guide by this good girl, 
who seemed to study my slightest wishes, and who 
generally did anticipate them ? 

Characteristically English conduct was that of a 
very eminent man of letters, of whose performance I 
was told. He was visiting two old maiden ladies, 
wdio were co-heiresses of a small estate, and were of 
the rank of gentry, but did not keep a very large do- 
mestic establishment. They had been brought up 
when the fashion of " tubbing " every morning was 
not so common as it is now. What was the horror 
of the household — wholly female — at the appear- 
ance of Mr. at the head of the staircase in the 

morning, more thinly and lightly clad than became a 
middle-aged bachelor among spinsters, and bawling 
out, " I should like to know how I 'm to take my 
bawth with this little can of water! "^ * 

This individual self-assertion takes form in customs 
peculiar to families, which are adopted very easily 
and retained firmly. In some cases they have been 
kept up for generations. In one country house at 

1 This word hath has three sounds in England among "the best 
speakers:" some of whom pronounce it as this gentleman did, bawth; 
others, bahth (a as in father), which is most common ; and others, bath 
{a as in an). 



JOHN BULL. 433 

which I visited it was the custom to breakfast in 
the library, dinner being of course in the dining- 
room. On Sunday morning I went as usual to the 
library at breakfast time, but although I was a little 
late there were no signs of breakfast. I took. up a 
book and began to read. Erelong a servant ap- 
peared, and asked me into the dining-room to break- 
fast ; and there my host informed me, with apology, 
that on Sunday the custom of the house was re- 
versed, — breakfast was in the dining-room and din- 
ner in the library. At a time of some domestic con- 
fusion in days past this had happened to be conven- 
ient ; it was continued for some unknown reason 
for a while, and had then hardened into a family 
custom which became a part of the religious observ- 
ance of Sunday. The free and independent Ameri- 
can citizen does not do so. He is not free and in- 
dependent enough to dare to be eccentric, and to be 
so, as in this case, it would seem, chiefly for the pur- 
pose of having some custom peculiar to himself and 
to his household. But it was not unpleasing. 

Coexistent, however, with this strong individuality 
and the license accorded to it is a disposition to re- 
sent any attempt to introduce social changes, par- 
ticularly if the attempt seems to imply any reproach. 
The sensitiveness on this point is very great, — so 
great that it becomes touchiness. Nolumus leges 
antiquas Anglice mutare expresses the spirit of the 
rulers of society now as well as it did that of the 
rulers of the state centuries ago. It is not the gen- 
eral custom to use napkins at luncheon in England, 
although at " great houses " luncheon is in reality a 
small dinner ; as it may well be when " ta muckle 
dinner hersel " is at eight o'clock, and on great oc- 

28 



434 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

casions at nine. An " American " lady was visiting 
at one of these houses, where she found the usual 
absence of the napkin at midday. She knew her 
hostess so well that she could venture to ask her 
why it was that napkins were not used at luncheon. 
Her grace (for she was a duchess) replied simply and 
briefly that it was "not the custom," and with an 
air that signified that that settled the question. 
But her guest had taken luncheon with the queen 
more than once at Balmoral, and there she had found 
napkins. This she told her friend as a sort of jus- 
tification of her inquiry. " Indeed ! " replied the 
duchess. " The queen had better be careful. She 
will make herself unpopular if she undertakes to 
change the customs of the country." The Philis- 
tinism of John Bull does not even stop short of nap- 
kins. 

Herein is manifested the feeling which takes an- 
other form in the dislike of anything foreign and in 
the assumption that nothing out of England can be 
quite so right as it is in England, — nothing moral, 
mental, or physical. This is a genuine feeling, and 
not an affectation, nor the result of arrogance, as it 
is generally assumed to be. It is often exhibited 
with a simplicity which is at once laughable and 
charming. On the Tichborne trial, the last one 
which condemned the impostor to penal servitude, 

Major F , of Roger Tichborne's regiment, said, 

in giving his testimony, that " Hoger was very much 
of a Frenchman, hut a perfect gentleman." Nothing 
more natural or unconscious ever was spoken ; and 
the speaker would probably be very unwilling to 
insult a Frenchman, or to wound his feelings. And 
so the candid London " Spectator" said of the hero of 



JOHN BULL. 435 

a book that " he lived in a perfect bower of Dres- 
den china, wore blue satin clothes, and told falsehoods 
with all a foreigner's facility.'''' ^ And yet if there 
is a journal in the world guided by a spirit of justice 
so fine that it passes into a noble generosity, it is the 
" Spectator." 

It would seem that " a foreigner " is and always 
has been the subject of doubt and wonder and 
laughter in England. " But Lord ! " writes Pepys, 
when the Russian ambassador comes to London, 
" to see the absurd nature of Englishmen, that can- 
not forbear laughing and jeering at everything that 
looks strange ! " 

But notwithstanding the protest that naturall}^ 
rises at this British assumption, and the arrogance 
that springs from and accompanies it, the simple 
truth is that it is not without reason. Of all gentle- 
men, an English gentleman is the most complete and 
admirable. His probity is the most absolute, — so 
firm and well settled that it needs not to assert itself ; 
his courtesy is the most genuine, for it unites with a 
manner which is so simple as not to be a manner a 
thoughtfulness for others and a hearty benevolence 
that stops at hardly any self-sacrifice ; he is a digni- 
fied embodiment of manliness and truth. Flis weak 
point is apt to be in tact ; a deficiency which results 
from a radical lack of sensibility, and from a hardy 
superiority to the little things of life. But in fine 
specimens of the class this is supplied by breeding ; 
and the result is a type than which nothing could be 
more " express and admirable." 

It is somewhat strange to see a people so marked 
by national egoism, so arrogant and self -asserting, 

1 November 27, 1862. 



436 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

SO bound up in a sense of the excellence of their race 
and of their own institutions, that their insolence is 
chiefly a result of consequent moral insulation, ready 
to adopt and even to claim the product of other lands 
and other races as their own. Let any man live in 
England, and take up English ways and prejudices, 
and he will soon be reckoned amono; Enaflishmen. 
The more surely v^^ill this be if he has any s|)ecial 
gift in the arts. Thus, for example, it is not a little 
amusing to hear Englishmen reckoning Handel as an 
English composer, and Alma Tadema as an English 
painter, because of their English domicile. For not 
only were they born and bred in other countries and 
of other races, but the cast of their minds and the 
nature of their productions are thoroughly un-English. 
In like manner, Mrs. Billington, born and bred in 
Germany, is much vaunted as an English singer, be- 
cause she was married to an Englishman and lived 
and sang in London. And this same self-centred, 
self -asserting people is ruled nominally by a family 
of Germans, whose habits and tone of thought, and 
whose daily household speech, even after generations 
of life in England, are German ; and ruled really when 
I was among them — this downright people — by a 
crafty Hebrew whom their German queen afterwards 
made into a grotesque semblance of an English earl. 
One result of the egoism and self-assertion wdiich 
pervades all classes of Englishmen is admirable and 
much to be desired. This is the maintenance of 
personal rights, of whatever kind. It is absolute, 
beyond all reach of wealth, or power, or rank ; prac- 
tically even beyond, it would seem, the vaunted om- 
nipotence of an act of Parliament. This absolute- 
ness is a genuine outcome of the English character. 



JOHN BULL. 437 

It exists nowhere else. Liberty, fraternity, and 
equality will not secure it ; rather the contrary. I 
have already defined England as the land where 
every man has rights which every other man must 
respect, — can disregard only at his peril. He may 
incur the danger of disregarding them if he chooses 
to do so ; but in that case the chances are ninety- 
nine in the hundred that, whatever his rank or his 
influence, he will suffer for it, even if he accomj)lish 
his purpose ; and even that he will not do without a 
fight. The rights are not the same rights, and those 
who would rather have identity of rights with the 
constant risk of having them disregarded with im- 
punity by "the public," or by rich corporations, or 
even by an assuming individual who takes on the 
form of a corporation — perhaps physically as well 
as financially — will probably prefer some other 
country. 



CHAPTER XIX. 

OXFORD AND CAMBEIDGE. 

The title of this chapter of my wanderings in 
England misrepresents my course, for I went to Cam- 
bridge first ; but custom has so firmly settled that in 
speaking of the two towns together we shall give 
precedence to that which is the seat of the elder 
university that it would seem strange to reverse this 
order. I set out from London in the company, al- 
most in the charge, of a Cambridge don, a friend who, 
having met me in the great city, took me off with 
him, and quietly made himself my host as well as my 
guide and counselor. I was doubly fortunate, nay, 
ter quaterque heatus, in having such a companion, for 
he was one who could have made a journey to New- 
gate in a prison van agreeable ; he knew everything 
about Cambridge, where his official position gave him 
access and his personal distinction secured him wel- 
come everywhere ; and he had a pride in his univer- 
sitj'-, and just enough good-natured jealousy of her 
rival to act as a pleasant stimulus in the discharge of 
the friendly office which he had assumed. 

Apart from the colleges, there is not much to be 
said of Cambridge by way of description ; for it has 
no other distinffuishinsj features or marked character. 
And yet I found it — I mean the town itself — at- 
tractive, pleasing, almost charming, in every way. I 
know no place in the United States to which, even 



OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE. 439 

eliminating the colleges, it can be compared by way 
of illustration. Althongii, like its New England 
namesake, its only apparent reason for existence is 
that it may contain a university, there is no other re- 
semblance between the two places. The Cambridge 
of New England is elegantly rural and is sparsely 
built ; whereas the Cambridge of Old England is 
urban and compact. We fondly call the seat of Har- 
vard Old Cambridge, — and indeed it is one of the 
oldest towns in the country ; but compared with the 
other Cambridge it still has upon it the gloss of new- 
ness, not to say the rougli edge of rawness, although 
the latter, except in its colleges, is not antique or 
even venerable in appearance. Nevertheless it is one 
of the cbarms of the town that, being more than a 
thousand years old, and having been for centuries 
a place of the first importance in England, it yet 
has only thirty thousand inhabitants, — an increase 
of hardly thirty a year since it has been known to 
history. No signs of traffic, no thronged streets, 
no hurry, no bustle, no clattering, jingling street rail- 
ways, no omnibuses, disturb its quiet ; no dirt, no new- 
built ranks of costly houses in hideous brown-stone 
uniforms, mar its decorous charm. 

The people are not idle, and yet they all seem to 
, have time to go about their business leisurely ; and 
from their look as you pass them in the streets, and 
from the whole air of the town, it is plain that it is 
not the Cambridgian's chief desire and occupation to 
get quickly somewhere else. To him a railway is not 
a Jacob's ladder leading to heaven, with angels as- 
cending and descending upon it. At nine o'clock in 
the morning, near the end of October, I found no 
one in the streets, and few shops open. Yet its peo- 



440 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

pie seem comfortable and happy, and the place has 
an air of solid, steady prosperity. But this combina- 
tion of prosperity and quiet is not unusual in Eng- 
land. At a quarter past nine I found Oxford streets 
yet unpeopled. A few shop-boys and shop-girls 
and a few coster-mongers with their carts were all 
the yisible signs that the day's business was begun. 
A few shops in "the High" were just open, and 
boys were rubbing the windows and sweeping. So I 
found it at Warwick ; and not only there, but even 
at Birmingham, on both my visits ; and it was much 
the same in London west of Charing Cross. Indeed, 
nothing impressed me more constantly and more 
pleasantly in England than the absence of " drive." 
Everybody seemed to take life easily; nobody seemed 
to be very hard worked. And yet the amount of 
effective work of all kinds done in England, whether 
with hand or head, is very much greater than that 
which is done in "America." 

Be this as it may, Cambridge seemed to me to be 
a place in which a man whose happiness does not 
consist in living in a big town (of which, by the Avay, 
however big it is, he can never see more at one time 
than he could if it were little) might live comfort- 
ably, and as elegantly as his means and his taste 
would permit. Indeed, the presence of the univer- 
sity makes a provision for elegant life and cultivated 
ta"stes an important part of the business of the trad- 
ers. For example, I found in a Cambridge shop 
some water-color drawings of English scenery which 
were of a higher quality than any that I happened to 
see for sale in London. It is characteristic of Eng- 
land that I, having looked at these on the afternoon 
of one day, on going the next morning at half past 



OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE, 441 

nine to make a selection from them (as I was to take 
a morning train for Oxford), found no one in the 
shop (which a lad was then opening), and had to 
wait some time until the shop-keeper could be sum- 
moned from the domestic recesses of the floor above. 
I went, as I was advised, to the Bull Inn (for of 
course my bachelor friend could not lodge me at his 
college), and I found the advice good. Nothing 
more unlike a hotel, even in a small town in " Amer- 
ica," could well be imagined. From its outside, a 
stranger would not be likely to take it for a public- 
house. Yet it was the best hotel in the county town 
of Cambridgeshire, the seat of one of England's two 
great universities, — a house frequented by the best 
and wealthiest people in that rich country ; and well 
fitted I found it for their comfort. The door passed, 
the most unobservant eye could see that the house 
was not as private houses are ; but here the unlike- 
ness to an " American " hotel in a similar situation 
was even more striking. A passage-way, on one side 
of wdiich Avas a " coffee-room " ^ of moderate size, 
turned at right angles to a kind of office, which was 
like a sitting-room with a broad half-sashed window ; 
and this room was nearly filled by half a dozen peo- 
ple, some of whom seemed to be guests, who were 
chatting with the landlord and with each other. A 
respectable-looking, intelligent woman was attending 
to the business of the place. The walls of the pas- 
sage-way were thickly hung with a great variety of 
prints, the subjects of which were various, — por- 
traits, college views, sporting scenes, and so forth, — 
and the paper and frames of which were mellow, not 
to say dingy, with age. My bedroom and bed were 

1 This name for the dining pavlor or eating room is general in England. 



442 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

the perfection of comfort, and were much like those 
in a small private house ; but they were without or- 
nament of any kind. My bill shows that one break- 
fast was the only meal I was allowed to take there 
in three days ; and I remember it as a very satisfac- 
tory performance, not only as to the viands but as to 
the way in which they were served, which was not 
the formation in front of me of a lunette of small 
oval dishes, half filled with half-cooked, half-cold, and 
wholly " soggy " food of half a dozen different kinds, 
but the bringing to me warm and fresh-cooked what 
I ordered when I came down. To satisfy the de- 
mands of a first-rate appetite in this way cost me 
three shillings (seventy-five cents), the usual price of 
a coifee-roora breakfast in England, except in the 
rural districts, where it diminishes to two shillings, 
or even to eighteen pence, without deterioration in 
the quality of anything, except perhaps that of the 
fish ; for, strange to say, I found in London the best 
fish that I ate in England, although they all come 
from the north. 

The architectural interest of Oxford is so great 
that Cambridge is too much neglected in this respect. 
Its college buildings are very beautiful, — so beauti- 
ful that only to see them would be worth a journey 
from any part of England. To describe them is no 
part of my purpose. I shall only say that I found 
their chief attractions in quarters not likely to meet 
the eye of the casual visitor ; in views of the build- 
ings from old gardens and greens and tennis courts, 
and from the walks in those silent grounds behind 
the colleges, on the other side of the Cam, where the 
aisles of lofty lime-trees make green arches high over- 
head, through which the eye is led to rest upon a 



OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE. 443 

stately tower far in the distance. One entirely pri- 
vate and secluded place I remember well : an old 
bowling-green it was, or something of the kind, with 
old walls and gate-ways, shaded by old trees and by 
shrubs that, fresh and green as they were, had yet 
plainly never committed the indiscretion of being 
very young ; and this was looked down upon by wise 
old windows in the rear of an old but hale and hearty 
gabled building, which, although merely of red brick, 
diffused about it the soft influence of a quaint and 
dreamy beauty. I never saw another place — I did 
not find one at Oxford — which so captivated and 
soothed me and allured me to linger, lulling me as if 
I had eaten lotos with my eyes. 

Trinity College, although it is not one of the oldest 
Cambridge houses, it having been founded by Henry 
VIII., in 1546, is of preeminent distinction in this 
university. It has given great men to the world ; 
among them him whose name stands with Shake- 
speare's and Bacon's as one of the greatest three 
among the immortals of the modern world. But 
Trinity is rich and strong in every way. It has sixty 
fellowships, and the presentation to no less than sixty- 
three livings and to four masterships. Its revenues 
are larger than those of any other college, — much 
larger than those of any other except Corpus Christi, 
called " Corpus." Its library is celebrated for its 
treasures in print and in manuscript. Among them 
I saw the great Capell collection of the early quarto 
editions of Shakespeare's plays, and the manuscript 
of Capell's own notes. I noted with interest that 
these grotesque but learned and thoughtful com- 
ments were written in a singularly clear, neat, and 
precise hand, and with few erasures or interlinea- 
tions. 



444 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WFfHIN. 

Between my visit to Trinity library and one to be 
made to the Fitzwilliam Museum, I went to luncheon 
with my friend at his rooms in Trinity. On our way 
from the gate to the quadrangle from which his stair- 
way ascended, we passed the " buttery hatch," and 
my host, pausing a moment, said to a man in attend- 
ance, " Send a stoup of ale and a manchet to my 
room, please," and was going on, when he checked 
himself, and changed his order : " No, send a plate 
of ale." The term buttery hatch may possibly need 
explanation to some of my readers. It means the 
hatch, or half door, of the buttery. There are old 
houses in rural New England in which such half doors 
or hatches may yet be found. Their purpose was to 
close the door against entrance by ordinary methods, 
and yet to permit speech between those within and 
those without. To get over the hatch was to effect 
an irregular and indecorous entrance. Shakespeare 
makes the Bastard Faulconbridge reply to Queen 
Elinor, when she says that she is his grandam, — 

"Madam, b}' chance, but not by truth; what though ? 
Sometliing about, a little from the right, 
In at the window, or else o'er the hatch." 

The buttery hatch is much the same as the buttery 
bar, which the saucy Maria mentions in " Twelfth 
Night," when, meaning to tell Sir Andrew Ague- 
cheek that his hand is dry, she says, " I pray you 
bring your hand to the buttery bar and let it drink." 
The modern bar (as in " bar-room ") is a remnant 
of the buttery bar ; and its name is a mere abbrevia- 
tion of that of the place where ale and wine used to 
be served out in great houses of old. The term plate 
as applied to ale was, my host informed me, in con- 
stant use to mean a vessel of two quarts. If a stoup 



OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE. 445 

of 'ale were ordered, a quart pot would be sent ; if a 
plate, a great tankard containing two quarts. Al- 
though he was a man well "up" in all such ques- 
tions, he said that constantly as the word was so used, 
and had been used from time immemorial, no one 
now knew why two quarts of ale were called a plate. 
It occurred to me that possibly it was because the 
large tankard was, from its size, brought on a salver 
of silver or pewter ; and he was kind enough to re- 
ceive my hasty conjecture with favor. 

However this might be, the ale — brewed by the 
college — was excellent, and I enjoyed it so much, 
and in his judgment, it would seem, with such dis- 
crimination, that he declared I should have some 
" audit ale." This ale is peculiar to Trinity, and one 
of the privileges of a Fellow of Trinity is that he is 
entitled to six dozen of it every year.^ It has its 
name from being served to the farmers and other 
tenants of the college when they come to the audit 
of accounts and the payment of rent. The farm- 
ers, he told me, preferred it to any wine that could 
be given them. And well they might do so ; for on 
a bottle's being brought and broached, I found that 
such a product of malt and hops had never passed 
my lips before. It was as mighty as that which Ce- 
dric found at Torquilstone, as clear as crystal, and 
had a mingled richness and delicacy of flavor as su- 
perior to that of the best brewage I had ever before 

1 G. 0. Trevelyan, in his memoirs of his uncle, says, " I never remember 
the time when it was not impressed upon me [by Macaulay] that if I minded 
my reading, I mie;ht eventually hope to reach a position which would give 
ine ^300 a year, a stable for my horse, six dozen of audit ale every Christ- 
mas, a loaf and two pats of butter every morning, and a good dinner for 
nothing with as many almonds and raisins as I could eat at dessert." 
These are the perquisites, or some of the perquisites, of a Fellpw of Trinity. 



446 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

tasted as that of Chateau Yquem is to ordinary Sau- 
terne. It would have justified the eulogy of the host 
in " The Beaux Stratagem : " " As smooth as oil, 
sweet as milk, clear as amber, and strong as brandy ; 
.... fanc}^ it Burgundy, only fancy it, and 't is worth 
ten shillings a quart." As I absorbed it I began to 
think that it is because " they who drink ale think 
ale " that Trinity produces Newtons and Macaulays. 
I afterwards found that, like some of the more deli- 
cate kinds of wine and finer growths of tea, it was 
somewhat impaired by transportation across the 
ocean, even when it was allowed a fortnight's quiet 
to recover from the effects of the voyage. And yet 
perhaps it rather owed some loss of its supreme ex- 
cellence to the absence of the circumstances under 
which I first made its acquaintance : those still, book- 
lined chambers, the very air of which seemed satu- 
rated with the aroma of elegant scholarship ; that 
noble old quadrangle upon which they opened ; and 
the mingling of common sense, wit, and learning in 
the discussion of subjects in which we had both been 
long interested, with which my host had before be- 
guiled our walk and then seasoned our repast.^ 

Our afternoon was spent in visiting the Fitzwill- 
iam Museum and other places of interest, and in 
strolling by what I suppose I must call the banks of 
the classic Cam, which gives this town its name. But 
what a thing to be called a river ! It is a long ditch, 
hardly as wide as an ordinary drawing-room. The 

^ So Persius says : — 

" Tecum etenim longos memini consumere soles, 
Et tecum primas epulis discerpere noctes ; 
TJnum opus, et requiem, pariter disponimus ambo, 
Atque verecunda laxamus seria mensa." 

(Sat. v. 74.) 



OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE. 447 

water is turbid, of a tawny tint, and so sluggish that 
its motion is imperceptible. How the feat of rowing 
is performed upon it I did not have an opportunit)^ 
of seeing, and cannot imagine. I should as soon 
think of yachting in a beer vat. And yet what oars- 
men the Cambridge under-graduates are ! It would 
seem as if difficulty did really perfect endeavor. 
However, the}'' are absolutely secure against one peril, 
— that of drowning. Even to bathe in the Cam 
would not be an easy nor, I think, a very cleanly op- 
eration.^ - 

We returned to my host's rooms to rest, and to 
make a little preparation for dinner ; and as we sat 
chatting in the early twilight his gyp entered and 
said, " Hall, sir ! " This is the customary announce- 
ment that dinner is served. They speak there not 
of going to dinner, but of going to hall. The attend- 
ance of under-graduates at hall as well as at chapel 
is noted ; and a customary a,bsence from either is 
one of the minor offenses against college discipline. 
Under all circumstances dinner is an important fact 
in England. A student of law is said to " eat his 
terms " at the Inns of Court. And here I will add 
that our afternoon's inspection of the college pre- 
cincts ended with a visit to the offices, including the 
kitchen, which my thoughtful host timed so that I 
saw the latter in full operation. It was a vast, an- 
cient, arched stone chamber, full twenty feet high. 

1 Upon the original publication of this chapter, the Pall Mall Gazette, 
springing, lilce insulted Naaman, to the defense of its native rivers, men- 
tioned an instance of a Cambridge scholar's drowning in this something, 
which, whatever it may be, can hardly be called a stream. I confess with 
shame my slanderous error. It must be admitted that such a casualty is 
possible; for does not Faulconbridge say to Hubert that he migljt drown 
himself if he would ''put but a little water in a spoon " ? 



448 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

But the strange and striking part of it was the prin- 
cipal fire-place. This was a shallow recess in the 
wall, some seven feet high, and a foot or two wider, 
before which there was an iron grating. In this 
huge, upright range was burning a perpendicular fire 
of glowing coals, in front of which was a complicated 
s^^stera of upright jacks on which no less than twenty- 
eight legs of , mutton in rows, one above the other, 
were turning and roasting at once. The sight and 
the savor were anything but appetizing. I wondered 
if those cooks, of whom there were not a few, ever 
ate roast meat, or whether they took their nourish- 
ment by absorption of the fumes of steaming flesh 
through the pores of their skins. 

At hall the under-graduates sit at tables which 
run lengthwise of the great room, the walls of which 
are decorated with portraits of distinguished Trinity 
men. The table at which the Dons and Fellows sit 
stands upon a dais, which runs transversely across 
the upper end of the hall. My friend had put on 
his gown and taken his square cap when we were 
summoned, and I found that all the others were at- 
tired in like manner. This full dress is constantly 
worn in public at the universities. My seat being 
-next the Vice-Master's, who of course sat at the head 
of the table, I happened to stand, before we took 
our places, close by the officers — for there were 
two — whose duty it was to say grace. An attend- 
ant presented a small wooden tablet on which was 
pasted a printed paper. One of them held this ; 
and in a style something like intoning they half 
read, half chanted, the grace in an antiphony of al- 
ternate lines. It was in Latin, of course; but if I 
had not happened to stand just behind them, where 



OXFORD AND CAMBEIDGE. 449 

I conld see the paper, I should not have been able to 
make out one word of it, because of the peculiarity 
of their pronunciation, which was like nothing that 
I had ever heard before, either from Continental or 
from English scholars. I afterwards learned that 
this pronunciation had been recently introduced by 
an eminent Latinist and professor of tlie university ; 
but that it was by no means common, even at Trin- 
ity, of which he was a member. 

I had the honor of being introduced to this gentle- 
man, and the pleasure of sitting next him at table, 
and I ventured, conscious of my temerity, to ask him 
some questions as to the Cambridge pronunciation 
of Latin, in which, as I have, mentioned before, I 
had noted the marked and bald English sound given 
to the vowels, — the unmitigated English a, e, and i. 
He replied verj^ kindly to my inquiries. But one 
little passage between us seemed to me characteris- 
tic. To get a clear apprehension of the vowel sounds, 
T asked him in regard to the nominative and genitive 
cases of nouns of the first declension, — musa, musce; 
" Do you say imixsah, mnsa^, or musay, miisee f " 
He hesitated a moment, and then said with a tinge 
of sadness, not to say of solemn reproach, " I hope 
that under no circumstances do you say musa/i." 
With perfect gravity, I believe, and I hope with the 
utmost respect, I replied that under no imaginable 
circumstances would I be guilty of saying musd but 
miisd, and that I had accented the last syllable of 
the word in my question merely by way of discrimi- 
nating emphasis. My apology and explanation were 
courteously accepted ; but I felt that I had narrowly 
escaped condemnation, perhaps comminatioa- or the 
major excommunication, for a very gross example of 

29 



450 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

what in any form is a crime at Oxford and Cam- 
bridge, — a false quantit3^ 

My learned neighbor then asked me how we pro- 
nounced Latin in "America." I replied that recently, 
I believed, various new modes of pronunciation had 
been introduced (I dropped no hint as to the grace), 
but that I had been taught a pronunciation which I 
illustrated by speaking a few words. " 'M ! — ah ! 
— yes ! — I see I — quite so, — a sort of Sc-o-tch pro- 
nunciation." His words dropped slowly from his 
lips, and he was very long in saying Scotch ; and I 
thought of the Bishop of Oxford in the " Fortunes 
of Nigel," who, although he was loyally silent be- 
neath gentle King Jamie's censure of his Latin as 
compared with Scotch Latin, was as ready to die for 
his pronunciation as for any other part of his creed. 

When we had dined, the butler laid out a long 
napkin before the Vice-Master, and placed upon it a 
tall silver vessel containing, or supposed to contain, 
rose-water ; whereupon we all stood up, and the Mas- 
ter, bending his head, said, " Benedicatur" which 
he pronounced henediecciT/tiw. The under-graduates 
then went out ; but a few of us who sat on the dais, 
taking our napkins in our hands, marched down the 
hall together, and went up-stairs to a smaller room, 
in which a dessert of fruit and wine was set out upon 
a noble mahogany table, the dark brilliancy of which 
reminded me of the tea-tables of my boyhood. And 
indeed, Spanish mahogany is your only wood for such 
uses ; walnut and rosewood are poor, pretentious sub- 
stitutes. This custom of withdrawing to another 
room for dessert is a remnant of a very old fashion. 
We now loosely call a feast from beginning to end a 
banquet; but banquet originally meant a second course 



OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE. 451 

of dainties after the principal meal, and it was the 
custom of old to take this at another table, and gen- 
erally in another room. The custom died out long 
ago in general society ; but it has been preserved 
among the dons at the universities. As to what 
passed at this banquet, I shall only say that a more 
delightful social hour could hardly be imagined, and 
that a possible assumption that the talk was confined 
strictl}^ to subjects of a scholastic nature would be 
somewhat at variance with the facts. But further 
than to say that the port wine was worthy of the 
reputation of the college I shall not go. Hall was 
public ; not so this brief symposium. 

On one of the evenings that I spent at Cambridge 
there was special service in the chapel, in honor of 
some obscure saint whose name I forget. I attended, 
and was fortunate in the occasion. The professors 
and resident Fellows and the under-graduates ap- 
peared to be present in a body, and as they were all 
in surplices, the masters of arts and the doctors of law 
and of divinity wearing their colored hoods, each of 
a peculiar tint, the sight was an imjDosing one. The 
great chapel was filled with this cloud of white-robed 
worshipers ; and when they rose and sat at the va- 
rious stages of the service, the soft rustle of their 
flowing raiment swept past me like the sound of 
wings. But I fear there were not so many angels 
among them as there seemed to me in this unaccus- 
tomed vision. Tlie spectacle was impressive because 
of this sacred garment and of the numbers of those 
who wore it. The trappings that are worn by va- 
rious orders of men, sacred and secular, the stars and 
the garters and the crosses, seem to me to be only 
fit to please children ; and to see a dozen or a scoi'e of 



452 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

mature men within a chancel or on a dais tricked out 
with these trinkets provolies me to sit in the seat of 
the scorner. But here the simplest garb possible 
concealed the tight, angular ugliness of our daily 
dress by flowing folds of luminous drapery ; and of 
these white-robed witnesses to Christianity there 
were hundreds gathered beneath my eye, as I sat in 
an elevated stall. To them it was the mere routine 
performance of an ecclesiastical function ; to me it 
seemed for a moment supramundane. The service 
was divided, part of it being read in one place, part 
in another ; and a verger, or some such officer, brought 
the huge, gilded books now to one, now to another. 
My stall was next that of the reader of the epistle, 
and nearly opposite that of the reader of another part 
of the service. I have heretofore recorded tlie excel- 
lence of their reading, and some marked traits of their 
pronunciation. 

One great beauty of this service was the music. 
The body of singers was large ; but the volume of 
tone was not more remarkable for quantity than for 
quality. It was very rich and delicious, and the per- 
formance, although lacking a little in nuance, was 
not without intelligently graduated expression. But 
above all the mass of sound there rose one voice, the 
counter-tenor of a man, that most ravishing of all 
voices when it is of fine quality and is delivered with 
purity and feeling, — a voice compared, with which 
even the finest female 7nezzo- soprano is tame and pale 
and bloodless. The musical cry of this singer pierced 
me to the ver}' soul with its poignant beauty. I could 
not see him, and I am glad that I could not ; for I 
am sure that nature could not have been so doubly 
beneficent to him as to give him a face becoming 
such a voice. 



OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE. 453 

The service ended, the congregation and the sing- 
ers in their shining raiment went slowly out. But 
alas! hardly had they reached the door when they 
broke headlong for the robing-room, flung off their 
surplices as if they were tainted garments, and rushed 
out pellmell into the streets, shouting, laughing, and 
careering with the spirits of youth set free from tedi- 
ous confinement. And this is my last memory of 
Cambridge. 

The next moi'ning I went to Oxford. The country 
between the two towns is the most uninteresting that 
I saw in England. It presents no features of any 
kind to attract the eye. It is not even flat enough 
to have a character of flatness. A fitter country to 
pass through by railway could hardly be found ; and 
for almost the first time in my life I wholly approved 
of that way of traveling. 

Oxford is the most beautiful place that I saw in 
England, and I am inclined to think that it is the 
most beautiful town in the world. I need hardly say 
that it is made so chiefly by the colleges. For here 
in a place of only fifty thousand inhabitants are more 
than twenty colleges and halls, most of them impress- 
ive by their extent (and mere size is a just cause of 
admiration in architecture, although not in countries 
or in pictures), and all of them more or less beautiful 
with a beauty unknown in our country and unattain- 
able ; for it is a beauty that comes not by command, 
nor by purchase, but by growth. These colleges are 
built around quadrangles, and their gateways admit 
you not to the interior of the building, but to the 
quadrangle. Some have two quadrangles, an outer 
and an inner. Their style is what is generally known 
as Tudor Gothic. Very few exhibit any remains of 



454 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

an earlier school of architecture. Their effect, con- 
sequently, is not that of grandeur or even of solem- 
nity, but of dignity and repose, with a suggestion of 
domestic comfort. As one looks upon them, it seems 
that, although it might be possible to live in them 
and be dull, or even ignorant, it would hardly be pos- 
sible for their inmates to be ill-mannered or vulgar. 
To pass four years in their halls, their courts and 
quadrangles, their closes, their greens, their walks 
and meadows, must be in itself an education, if edu- 
cation is anything but the getting of knowledge out 
of books. Here I had the good fortune to be ex- 
pected by a Fellow of Queen's, a scholar whose name 
is known and honored the world over. It is needless 
for me, however, to recount an experience of college 
hospitality which repeated that which was so pleasant 
at Cambridge. I will only mention that as we were 
walking through a gallery in which were many por- 
traits, my host naming one and another to me, I 
recognized Heniy V., and mentioned his name my- 
self. "Ah, yes," said my guide, in a by-the-way 
tone, " he was an under-graduate of this college ; 
and so was the Black Prince for a while." 

I was not allowed to miss anything that was of in- 
terest ; but I am not writing a guide-book, and I shall 
pass by the show places without mention. But I 
cannot refrain from advising every one who visits 
England with a desire to see its characteristic beau- 
ties to give at least two or three days to Oxford. 
Besides the colleges themselves, the views around 
them are of a peculiar and an enchanting beauty. 
The view across Merton fields, behind Merton col- 
lege, off to the tower of Magdalen, is perfection in 
its kind. The wide expanse of vivid green coming 



OXFOED AND CAMBRIDGE. 455 

close up to the college walls, the noble old trees, the 
gabled roofs and mullioned windows of Merton, and 
Magdalen's noble tower closing the vista, the forms 
of its strongly outlined buttresses and pinnacles 
softened and enriched by the distance, make this 
view seem rather like the ideal composition of an 
imaginative landscapist than the unpremeditated, re- 
sult of man's seeking for his own comfort and con- 
venience. 

And Magdalen has a deer park, to which and 
about which I walked three times in my visit, ap- 
proaching it through quaint and irregular ways more 
or less public. Skirting its stone wall, I came one 
morning upon a little chapel, whose tiny bell was 
clamoring sweetly for some half a dozen maids and 
matrons to come to service; — the cleverest scene- 
painter that ever wielded biaish never devised any- 
thing half so pretty. Then not far bej'ond I found 
a great old double-roofed stone barn, which on exam- 
ination proved to be a part of some ancient ecclesias- 
tical building, which had been saved from absolute 
destruction and converted to farming purposes. More 
than once I walked past Baliol and St. John's down 
St. Giles's Street, where the martyrs' monument 
stands at the head of a double row of trees, to a 
beautiful place on the edge of the town, where Ox- 
ford park lies on one side of the road, along which 
stretches a noble row of trees for almost half a mile. 
Here I found a cluster of villa houses that filled me 
with longing to come and live in one of them, such 
was their union of comfort and unpretending elegance 
as they stood there looking out upon the park, and 
yet within twenty minutes' walk of the High Street, 
where a man could obtain everything that he could 



456 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

crave for the delight of mind or body. I found in 
three days no end to the beauty of Oxford. 

At the Taylorian museum I looked over not only a 
selection of water-color drawings by Turner, in which 
he appears at his best, but a collection of original 
drawings by Raffael and Michael Angelo, of such 
interest and value that they would be cheap at 
their weight in diamonds. But after all I believe 
that a head, a portrait, by Masaccio, who preceded 
Raffael and even Leonardo, most impressed me by 
its large simplicity of style and purity of color. It 
had a red hat, which was a crown to the painter, if 
not to the wearer. 

In London a distinguished Dublin professor and 
author had asked me somewhat dubiously, as I was 
breakfasting with him at the University club, if I 
would care to know an Oxford under-graduate. " Why 
not," I replied, " if he is a good fellow, know an un- 
der-graduate as well as a don?" — whereupon he 
gave me a hearty commendation to one of his former 
pupils. I did not deliver this letter ; for on inquir- 
ing for the gentleman's rooms I was directed by mis- 
take to those of another under-graduate of the same 
name. Him I found, and when I presented my let- 
ter to him in person (for I was sent straight up to his 
rooms, which were not in college but in lodgings ; 
scholars living thus are called oppidans, I believe) he 
smiled, and explained the mistake; but he received 
me most courteously and kindly, and at once offered 
me such attention and such services as were in his 
power. I did not find in all of England that I saw 
one specimen of the surly, "grumpy " Englishman of 
whom we hear so much. 

As I was walking back briskly toward Queen's in 



OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE. 457 

the twiliglit (for it was almost time for hall) I was 
conscious of some one overtaking me and keeping 
pace with me for a moment or two, and then I heard 
my name spoken with an inflection of inquiry. I 
turned, and saw a scholar of Baliol whom I had met 
at his father's house in London. After welcoming me 
to Oxford, he asked me if I would not like to go to 
the Union (a university debating society and club), 
where there was to be a debate that evening. Of 
course I was glad to do so ; and he also invited me, 
with needless but attractive modesty, to take lunch- 
eon with him and some other under-graduates at his 
rooms nest day, — an invitation which I gladly ac- 
cepted. 

After hall at Queen's he called and took me to the 
Union. The floor of a large room or theatre was 
filled with under-graduates. There was a Speaker 
sitting at an elevated table, a secretary, and another 
officer of some sort. Before the Speaker was an un- 
occupied table. The audience, among whom I took 
my place, thronged a gallery which ran round three 
sides of the theatre. The question for debate that 
evening was (as nearly as I remember it), " Is the 
foreign policy of Mr. Disraeli and the government 
entitled to the confidence of the country ? " The 
proceedings were conducted in the most parliament- 
ary manner. The speakers went up to the head of 
the room, and, placing their hats, which they took 
with them, upon the unoccupied table, faced alter- 
nately the Speaker's chair and the audience. They 
always referred to each other as " the honorable 
membah," "the honorable membah who had pre- 
viously addressed the house." Indeed, parliamentary 
etiquette was strictly observed ; and it was (I hope I 



458 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

may be pardoned for saying) a little amusing and not 
unpleasing to see them lift up and set down tlieir 
hats, and put their hands behind them under their 
coat-skirts to cock them up in a manner which per- 
fected the ilhision. The debate itself was conducted 
with an ability that made it highly interesting. The 
speeches, without being too formal, yet had foi'm, and 
were remarkable for a happy arrangement and devel- 
opment of the views which the speakers presented. 
But what chiefly commanded my admiration and 
caused me some surprise was the readiness and flu- 
ency of the speakers. None of them used notes, and 
all the speeches, except the first, were in reply. In 
a word, it was a real debate. Yet the hesitancy, the 
fumbling for fit phrases, the unreadiness, of which 
Englishmen are accused, and of which they even ac- 
cuse themselves in comparison with " American " 
speakers, were in no case apparent, but on the con- 
trary the ready command of a full vocabulary. The 
" honorable members " on the floor cheered their fa- 
vorites, cheered ironically, and groaned, all in true 
parliament fashion. The debate was summed up 
with marked ability and great spirit by a gentleman 
who was evidently a favorite with the whole house, 
even with his opponents, and justly. I think I never 
listened to an abler speech of the kind in a deliber- 
ative assembly, least of all in a state legislature or 
in Congress. The Speaker's name was Bowman or 
Bauman, and I venture the prediction that if he 
should obtain a seat in Parliament he will be heard 
of there and elsewhere. When the question was 
taken, it need hardly be said that there was a large 
majority in favor of the government; for the Tories 
are strong at Oxford. But it was delightful, imme- 



OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE. 459 

diately upon acljoiniiment, to lieai' cheers for Bauman 
called for and given with a hearty good-will by all 
the house, his opponents taking the lead. This is a 
sort of English fairness of spirit the manifestation of 
which it is pleasant to contempLite. 

After the debate we went to the Union refectory, 
and passed half an hour in chat over cigarettes and 
coffee. No spirits, wine, or even ale are " licensed to 
be drunk on the premises," — a sensible provision at 
which I found no disposition to grumble. And I 
noted the modest and sober fitting up and furniture 
of this a]3artment. There was no display of polished 
wood or gilding ; no bright colors, either on the walls 
or on the floor. All was simple, but comfortable and 
cheerful. My luncheon at Baliol was very pleasant, 
but furnished no occasion for particular remark. 
There were two other under-graduates besides my 
host, — sensible, manly, modest fellows, with the 
cai-eful dress and polished manners of high-class Ox- 
ford men. It would have been impossible, I think, 
to find any difference between them and three under- 
graduates at Harvard of like social position. And 
how and why should any difference exist ? 

The next day I had a luncheon of quite another 
sort. As I was walking in " the High " it oc- 
curred to me that my inner man needed a little res- 
toration, and having seen a pastry-cook's shop with 
" Boffin " over the door, I decided, for the name's 
sake, to go there. As I approached it I saw a card 
in the window announcing that chocolate was to be 
had, and entering I asked if I could have chocolate 
and rolls. " Oh, yes, I could 'ave them, but not 
there. Would I be kind enough to step up to their 
other place, which was only a little way up the 



460 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

street?' This struck me as rather a curious result 
of the advertisement in the window ; but I was happy 
to comply. I had before observed the other place, 
and wondered that Oxford, among its manifold excel- 
lences, should be so happy as to possess two Boffins. 
(I may remark here that I found in London and 
elsewhere some of Dickens's oddest names, which I 
had supposed were of his own fabrication.) On 
reaching the duplicate Boffin's, I again asked for 
chocolate, not this time to be sent elsewhere. 
"Would I please to walk up-stairs?" I was po- 
litely waved to a "dark backward and abysm " of the 
shop, in which I dimly saw a small winding stairway. 
Up this I slowly screwed myself, my mind revolving, 
as my body turned, this singular way of dispensing 
chocolate to the public. For the affair was of so 
strictly private and, so to speak, recondite character 
that I was somewhat embarrassed. I felt as if when 
I reached the top of the stairs, and before I could 
unwind myself, I must certainly intrude upon some 
homely family arrangements which I should be loath 
to disturb. I did not know but I might break in 
upon Mr. Wegg engaged in declining and falling off 
the Roman Empire. 

At the top of the stairs I found a small dark room, 
sombre of hue and of furniture, in which were two 
or three tables formally laid, as if for hot joints, at 
one of which I sat myself down in meek expectancy. 
I was kindly allowed some time for reflection. At 
last, after I had ruminated a while without my cud, 
there appeared a short, serious, middle-aged man in 
black, with black hair which had not a perfectly 
natural look, but seemed as if it were of that color 
to be in keeping with his general appearance and 



OXFOED AND CAMBRIDGE. 461 

manner, whicli was that of a respectable, conscientious 
undertaker engaged in professional business. He 
had something like a dirty white halter round his 
neck, and he saluted nie with so much gloom and so 
much consideration that I should not have been 
much surprised if he had asked me if it were per- 
fectly convenient to me to step out and be hanged. 
But no ; he only said that the weather was very- 
pleasant for the young gentlemen coming up, — 
plainly meaning the under-graduates, and brought 
me my luncheon. Yet he shut the door so carefully 
and silently when he went out that he left me not 
without suspicions that the name over the portal 
bade me leave all hope behind, and that instead of 
Boffin it should have been Coffin. Immured within 
this twilit cell, I felt shut off from human kind. I 
have not yet been in prison ; but when I do go, I 
am sure the sensation will not be new to me. In 
solitude I drank my chocolate, feeling that it should 
■ have been cold water. I ate my roll and butter con- 
scious that it should have been a mouldy crust. I felt 
guilty, — guilty of some nameless crime. Erelong 
my attendant stole into the room again, bearing on 
his arm a damp, limp napkin, with which he sol- 
emnly approached me. But he did not throw it over 
my face ; he only asked me, very respectfully, if I 
would " 'ave hanythink else." I did not choose to 
have anything else ; what I had had already sat heavy 
on my soul ; and I left Boffin's with the mingled feel- 
ings of joy at release and consciousness of moral ruin 
which become a discharged convict. 

They keep early hours at Oxford, and, taking a hint 
from Charles Lamb, make up for late rising in the 
morning by going to bed betimes at night. At ten 



462 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

o'clock Oxford streets are silent and almost deserted, 
and at nine they begin to lose their life. A dim 
light hangs within the gateways of the colleges ; and 
the quadrangles are grayly seen, only by the help of 
the moon, when she shines in the pale, shy, shame- 
faced way with which she does her duty in England, 
where it cannot be said of her, 

" Cold and fair 
Sits she there, 
Calling the tides." 

For the moon of England seems fitted only to rule the 
ebb and flow of such waters as the Cam ; and yet, so 
deceptive is very nature, the tides in England, as we 
all know, are grander and mightier than any that our 
bold, bright Cynthia controls. I found a charm in 
the sight of these old scholastic buildings at night, 
and went again and again from one to the other, loi- 
tering in and about the quadrangles and cloisters, 
and contrasting the dim confusion of the architectural 
forms below with the sharp, irregular lines of the 
turrets and gables against the sky. More than once 
some belated Fellow stared at me inquiringly, as he 
found me sauntering near his own particular pre- 
cincts ; but I was never questioned. 

The night before I left Oxford I was walking 
through a narrow lane, near Queen's College. Stone 
walls were on both sides of me. As I walked I heard 
the sound of music. I listened, and distinguished 
the tones of an organ and the voices of a choir. I 
walked on a little way, the music becoming clearer, 
till I came to a door, one which appeared not to be 
in use and not to have been opened for a long time. 
I laid my ear against it, and thus heard the music 
very plainly. How good it really was I shall not 



OXFOED AND CAMBRIDGE. 463 

undertake to say, for in my mood then I was not a 
trustworthy critic ; but suiting my temper, and veiled 
by distance and by obstacle, it seemed to me beauti- 
ful, ravishing, divine. I could not hear a word, but 
I needed no word to tell me its sacred character ; it 
seemed indeed less ecclesiastical than celestial. At 
once I was borne back by swift-winged memory to 
the boyish days when things were as they are not 
now, and I was as I shall never be again. Once 
more I stood, as at the gate of Canterbury Cathedral 
choir, shut out from the place whence I heard the 
songs of Paradise. I remained leaning against the 
door until the last tones had died away, and then, 
loitering no longer, went to my hotel. I did not 
learn what and why this music was at that late hour ; 
for early the next morning I left Oxford for the 
north. 



CHAPTER XX. 

A NATIONAL VICE. 

In that scene of " Othello " in which lago betraj^s 
Cassio into drunkenness, he sings a clattering drink- 
ing song, of which he says to his victim, " I learned 
it in England, where, indeed, they are most potent 
in potting : your Dane, your German, and your swag- 
bellied Hollandei' .... are nothing to your Eng- 
lish." But remember, complacent brother Yankee, 
that this description of English manners concerns 
you directly. You cannot say that the galled jade 
in England may wince, but your withers are un- 
wrung. It is your forefathers whom Shakespeare 
thus describes by the lips of that jovial soldier and 
prince of good fellows, "mine ancient." You have 
just the same concern in the picture that your Brit- 
ish cousin has : no more, but not a whit less. You 
may have followed Falstaff's advice to himself to leave 
sack and live cleanly ; but if any one is at all impli- 
cated in the potting of Englishmen between two and 
three hundred years ago, you are the man. Never- 
theless, there is at the present day a very manifest 
difference between the two great divisions of the 
English race in this matter, although the amount of 
wine and whisky and beer consumed in " America " 
seems to increase year by year, rather than to dimin- 
ish. 

What may be called domestic drinking has, how- 



A NATIONAL VICE. 465 

ever, mucli fallen off among us within the memory 
of living men. In the days of the fathers of the 
present active generation, some forty years ago, it 
was the custom here to offer cake and wine to ladies 
at morning calls ; and not long before that time wine 
and spirits were in use even at funerals. These cus- 
toms have happily passed away, and although they 
may have been succeeded by others not less objec- 
tionable in the same respect, the use of alcoholic 
drinks in the household, except at dinner and on 
festive occasions, has diminished so greatly that the 
change is one of the most notable that has taken 
place in our society. In England, however, although 
wine is not offered, as a matter of course, to callers, 
wine, beer, and spirits are drunk freely at all times 
in households of a grade and a character which here 
would be a warrant that nothing stronger than coffee 
or tea, or, of late years, on extraordinary occasions, a 
little " lager " beer, would be seen upon the table. 
For, in England, not only do people who live gen- 
erously, not to say freely, and with a respect for 
creature comforts, draw regularly upon the cellar or 
the tap, but, with very few exceptions, all of that 
large class — it is almost equally large in both coun- 
tries — which unites narrow means, frugal living, 
and a strong religious and ascetic feeling are constant 
drinkers of malt liquor, and most of them of spirits, 
although in a moderate and truly temperate way. 
With this class in America it is both virtuous and 
economical to substitute, for cakes and ale, pie and 
water. 

The free use, not only of wine and beer, but even 
of spirits, by all classes, and by both sexes, among 
people of the highest respectability and the most dec- 

30 



466 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

orons life, was the very first of English habits which 
attracted my attention. My readers may remember 
the mention of my observation of this habit at the 
morning performance at the Birmingham musical 
festival, where, at midday, between the parts of the 
concert, sandwiches and biscuit were accompanied 
by highly fragrant draughts from silver and gold- 
mounted flasks, which were freely drained by ladies 
in all parts of the immense hall, even by those in 
the " president's seats," where the nobility and the 
" swells " in general were carefully roped off from 
the rest of the audience, and where there was an 
archbishop who might have said high gi'ace over 
what his friends around him were about to receive. 
They may remember, too, that fair and delicate 
woman with whom, the next day, I was shut up alone 
in a first-class carriage between Birmingham and Lon- 
don, and who astonished me by filling her horn, not 
exactly as Diana fills hers, with a fluid that made our 
compartment as highly odorous as a cellar in Cognac. 
The impression made upon me by these incidents 
was deepened every day that I spent. in England. 
In London I saw respectable-looking women coming 
out of tap-rooms, wiping their lips, at ten o'clock in 
the morning. They were not " ladies," but they 
were women of decent dress and demeanor, — women 
of a sort that here would be frightened at the thought 
of entering a bar-room.^ At restaurants I saw the 

1 "I suppose that no one likes spirits when he first tastes them. But 
when once the habit of drinking them is acquired a craving for them is 
speedily'developed. This is more particularly the case with women ; and 
the number of women that step into a public house to treat each other to 
gin is greater than even that of the men." — London Truth, May 1, 1879. 

The following paragraph, quoted from some British journal, recently 
appeared in the New York Herald: — 

"An Edinburgh gentleman recently counted in a confectioner's ladies' 



A NATIONAL VICE. 467 

same freedom on the part of women of a much, 
higher grade. I mentioned this to a New York 
woman who had gone over in the same steamer with 
me, and who was with her party for a few days at 
the same hotel. She, who had been in England two 
or three times, had, nevertheless, been newly im- 
pressed in like manner ; and she told me that only 
the day before, when her party, which consisted of 
her brother-in-law, her sister, her nephew and niece, 
and herself, after some fatiguing hours of sight-see- 
ing, had gone to a restaurant to take a hearty lunch- 
eon, in the order for which ale and brandy and wa- 
ter had been included, to her amazement the waiter 
placed the ale before the gentlemen, and the brandy, 
by no mistake, but deliberately, before her. The 
waiter, when he was requested to change the arrange- 
ment, made no apology, and did not seem to think 
that he had been guilty of a blunder. She enjoyed 
the joke too much to be offended. 

I hasten to say, however, that I did not see, in any 
part of England, in any society to which I had the 
pleasure of being admitted, a single instance, even 
among men, of perceptible excess in drinking. And 
I venture to add that I am so far from being squeam- 
ish upon this point myself that I respected a friend, 
a man not only of character and high social standing, 
but of strong religious feeling, when he said to me one 
morning, " Last night, when I was talking with you, 
I was somewhat excited by wine " (I had hardly ob- 
served it), " and perhaps was somewhat vehement. 
Some people are ashamed to own that they are, or 

room twelve ladies drinking spirits, porter, or ale, a girl of fourteen taking 
a bottle of stout. At the counter two misses in their teens were paying 
for three brandy-and-sodas. School-girls, he says, also take nips of cherry 
brandy." 



468 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

have been, excited by wine. I am not." I could 
not but reflect, however, that a similar confession by 
an American of his years and character would quite 
surely never be made. 

This gentleman, moreover, was a man of active 
benevolence, and was one of a few who had under- 
taken the establishment, in one of the large towns, 
of chocolate houses for the benefit of the laboring 
people, to win them away if possible from the ale- 
house, the tap-room, and the gin palace. I visited 
one of these chocolate rooms with him, and was 
pleased to see the simple earnestness with which he 
made inquiries of the person in charge as to the favor 
with which they were regarded by those for whose 
good they were established, and the satisfaction 
with which he received information that the number 
of visitors was increasing. But the result of my 
observations on the whole did not lead me to look 
for much social amelioration of England by this 
well-meant and possibly wise project. 

The Englishman, and particularly the Englishman 
of the laboring class, is wedded to his beer. He feels 
that it is the great comfort, and one of the very few 
enjoyments, of his life. And not only is the chocolate 
room or any other like, contrivance " slow," but there 
is about it an implication that he is taken in hand 
and managed by his betters, like a child, which he 
not unnaturally resents. Rightly or wrongly, he feels 
more ashamed of being treated in this way than he 
does of being drunk once a week ; once, however, be- 
ing here a word of wide signification. For in these 
cases " the same drunk " often extends from Saturday 
night to Monday and not unfrequently into Tuesday, 
The result of this habit, which may almost be called a 



A NATIONAL VICE. 469 

custom, is deplorable and socially injuvioas to a degree 
of which we in America have a very imperfect idea. 
The beer of England is not like the light German beer 
which has come so much into vogue here of late years 
under the name of " lager," and of which a man of 
any stability of brain and knee might drink enough 
to swim in without feeling any other effect than that 
of unpleasant distention ; it is heady,, strongly nar- 
cotic, and apparently not exhilarating, but depressing. 
Drunk in large quantities, after a short period of ex- 
citement, it dulls the brain and fills the drinker's 
whole bulk with liquid stupefaction. He becomes 
not intoxicated, but besotted. Not only laboring 
men and men who ought to labor but do not give 
themselves up to this debasing habit of beer-drunken- 
ness through two or three days of the week, but 
skilled artisans, men whose work is of a kind and of 
an excellence which is worthy of respect and admi- 
ration. I was more than once told in regard to an 
artisan of this class, a man whose work was always 
in demand at the highest price, and who could with 
ease have kept himself and his family in perfect coin- 
fort and have laid up money, that he would not work 
for any man nor at any pay more than four days in a 
week. Blue Monday is a recognized " institution ". 
in England ; and, as I have intimated, the blueness 
of it not unfrequently tinges Tuesday, and this 
among the very best of the skilled artisans. One 
bookbmder told me that his two best men, " fin- 
ishers " to whom he gave his finest work in j)erfect 
confidence that it would be done unexceptionably 
both in workmanship and in style, never " made 
any time," that is, never got really to work, before 
Wednesday. Like stories were told me of other 



470 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

equall}^ accomplished workmen. This is not only 
ruinous to the men and to their families, but the 
aggregate industrial loss to England must be very 
great. 

Such steady, besotted drunkenness seems to be at 
the bottom of much of the distress and most of the 
crime of England. A clergyman whose work lay 
chiefly among the laboring classes told me that he 
felt utterly powerless before this vice, which was a 
constant quantity in the problem that he was called 
upon to solve. I knew a lady who was a district 
visitor in a suburb of London, one of those minis- 
tering angels who in England, more, it seems to me, 
than in any other country in the world, give them- 
selves up to the work of helping and bettering the 
most wretched and degraded of their kind, and who 
carry purity and grace and Christian love into dens 
of filth and sin and suffering which, if they did not 
see them, would be beyond their chaste imagina- 
tions ; and I asked her one day if she met with any 
encouragement, and if she thought she had been able 
to do much real good. With a sad, sweet smile she 
answered, " Very little. The condition of these peo- 
ple seems hopeless ; and they are hopeless. All that 
we can do is to lielp them from time to time ; and 
we find them always where we left them, or, if pos- 
sible, yet lower, more degraded, more wretched. 
And at the bottom of it all is drunkenness. The 
men are always more or less drunk, and the women 
are almost as bad. They earn a little money, and 
they get di'unk. Husband and wife get drunk to- 
gether ; they quarrel ; they fight ; and the children 
grow up with this before them. They are never 
really quite sober unless they are starving or ill. 



A NATIONAL VICE. 471 

What can be done for such people ? How can they 
or their condition be made better ? " The tears fell 
from her eyes as she spoke. I knew that it was so. 
■My own observation, very small and of little worth 
as compared with hers, had yet shown me this. And 
I was struck with horror at the besotted condition of 
so many of the women, — women who were bearing 
children every year, and suckling them, and who 
seemed to me little better than foul human stills 
through which the accursed liquor with which they 
were soaked filtered drop by drop into the little 
drunkards at their breasts. To these children drunk- 
enness comes unconsciously, like their mother tongue. 
They cannot remember a time when it was new to 
them. They come out of the cloud-land of infancy 
with the impression that drunkenness is one of the 
normal conditions of man, like hunger or like sleep. 
Punishment for mere drunkenness, unaccompanied 
by violence, must seem strange to them, one of the 
exactments which separate them from the superior 
classes, from whom come to them, as from a sort of 
Providence, both good and evil.-^ 

1 Not unreasonably some of my readers might suppose that this pict- 
ure was highly colored ; but a few days after this page was first sent to 
the press, I found in a New York newspaper the following extract from 
the London Telegraph: — 

"No substantial progress can be made in the laudable enterprise of 
grappling with the curse of strong drink in this country until the fact 
is more largely and more candidly recognized that women as well as men 
are accustomed to get outrageously tipsy. Although the proportion of 
women sots is not so large as that of men, a female drunkard may be 
more mischievous than a male one, because the home, when the wife and 
mother drinks, must inevitably be broken iip, and the children, in the 
majority of instances, take after the drunken habits of the parent of whom 
they see the most. A veiy painful illustration of this recently came 
under the notice of the magistrate at Marlborough Street, when a mar- 
ried woman, who was brought up on remand as a ' drunk and disor- 
derly,' herself applied, under the Habitual Drunkards' act, to be sent to 



472 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

Those superior classes themselves, however, seem 
to have been, not very long ago, at least as much 
given to intoxication as their inferiors are now. The 
adage " as drunk as a lord " is indeed obsolescent, 
and with good reason ; but its existence is proof of 
the habits of the class which it makes a basis of com- 
parison. The adage, however, is, I am inclined to 
think, not a Yevj old one. I know no instance of its 
use more than one hundred and fifty or two hundred 
years ago ; and I am inclined to the opinion that it 
witnesses a condition of society which did not ob- 
tain until after the Restoration, and which was most 
fully developed in the last centur3^ English litera- 
ture, even dramatic literature, of an earlier time, 
affoi'ds no evidence that Englishmen of the higher 
ranks were notably given to intoxication. Had they 
been so, this evidence could hardly have been lacking 

a home for inebriates. The poor woman had been married twenty-three 
3'ears, and had brought up a numerous family, but latterly she had taken 
to drinking to excess, had turned her two daughters into the street, and 
tlireatened to tear her boy's tongue out and to set fire to the house." 

Kead, too, this deplorable confession, and the accompanying description 
of a scene the horrors of which are almost incredible : — 

"A picture of the social habits of some of the poorer classes in this 
country is afforded by the evidence given at an inquest, held on Mon- 
day at Stafford, on the body of an old woman named Marj' Devellin, 
found dead under the following hori'ible circumstances. A daughter of 
the deceased, on returning home last Friday night, found her mother 
absent, and proceeded to the house of an Irishman, named Mahoney, in 
search of her. On opening the door of the room, she saw five or six 
men and women Ij'ing on the floor in a state of intoxication. 'They 
were all piled together like clead bodies,' and on a bundle of sacks in a 
corner of the room was the body of her mother. Her face was fright- 
fully swollen and discolored. The daughter tried to awaken her, but in 
vain. The old woman had drunk herself to death, and was lying there 
a corpse among her unconscious boon companions. A post-mortem ex- 
amination revealed the fact that the internal organs of the deceased were 
nearly 'eaten awa}' by the effect of alcoliolic liquors,' and the verdict of 
the jury was in accordance with the medical evidence." — Pall Mall 
Gazette', May 12, 1879. 



A NATIONAL VICE. 473 

in the plays of Dekker, of Heywood, and of other 
playwrights. We all know, however, the habits in 
this respect of a large proportion of the men of rank 
in England at the end of the last century and at 
the beginning of this. The evidence upon the sub- 
ject is so strong, and shows such a condition of so- 
ciety in this resj)ect, that the change to the present 
admirable temperance and decorum, which I have 
already mentioned, is not only to be admired but to 
be wondered at, as having been effected in so short a 
time.^ 

It is safe to assume that, in the last centary, among 
English people who were able to live generously and 
who were not under the restraint of religious asceti- 
cism, the large majority of both sexes were more or 
less fuddled every day after dinner, which then 
among such people was at about three or four o'clock, 
afternoon. This fact affords an explanation, and to 
me it is the onlj admissible or conceivable explana- 
tion, of the behavior of the elegant people of that 

1 The following whimsical caution given to j'oung ladies by a clever but 
now forgotten writer of the last century, an elegant man of "society," is 
apropos here : — 

" But ever let my lovely pupils fear 
To chill their mantling blood with cold small beer. 
Ah, thoughtless fair I the tempting draught refuse, 
When thus forewarned by my experienced Muse. 
Let the sad consequence your thoughts employ, 
Nor hazard future pains for pi-esent joy. 
Destruction lurks within the pois'nous dose, 
A fatal fever or a pimpled nose." 

SoAME Jentns, The Art of Dancing, 1795, Canto II. 

As to the common people the same writer bears the following testi- 
mony : — 

"Now whoever has been present at a fair, a sermon, a horse-race, an 
assizes, a cricket match, or a visitation, or any other numerous meeting in 
the country, must know that on the most enlarged computation the num- 
ber of sober cannot exceed the proportion of those who are drunk." 
— Wo7-hs, 1795, vol. ii. p. 158. 



474 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

century and the early years of this at the theatre, 
and even in the drawing-room when there was senti- 
mental singing, like Tom Moore's. Men as well as 
women would weep openly ; and at the hearing of 
tragedies, the very reading of which now would make 
us yawn, damp handkerchiefs were waving all over 
the house, especially in the boxes. At very affecting 
passages ladies would swoon or shriek, and be carried 
out in hysterics. When Tom Moore sang, in his lit- 
tle voice that could hardly be heard over a large 
drawing-room, ladies of the highest rank hung over 
him at the piano-forte, and gave way to the'ir emo- 
tions in the most effusive and engaging manner, so 
that there too they not unfrequently were faint or 
hysterical. The men were hardly behind them. 

It is difficult to believe that these are the manners 
and customs of the same race, only two generations 
removed, in which now the mark of good breeding is 
the restraint of all expression of emotion, particularly 
that of a sentimental kind. To believe it would be 
impossible, were not the change accompanied by one 
with regard to ebriety by which it is explained. At 
those theatres and in those drawing-rooms it might 
have been said, as the Reverend Mr. Stiggins re- 
marked to Brother Tadger at the Brick-Lane Branch 
of the Ebenezer Temperance Society, " the meetin 's 
drunk." Doubtless a large majority of those present 
were, if not intoxicated, maudlin with drink, and 
ready to be affected with that which would not have 
stirred them a jot had they led constantly sober lives. 
Only on such a supposition as this can the impres- 
sion which was produced by " The Beggar's Opera " 
be accounted for. How such words and such music 
could have set the town wild, and caused lords to 



A NATIONAL VICE. 475 

fall m love with the actresses and ladies with the 
actors, is otherwise quite incomprehensible. 

Even now, however, the consumjjtion of wine and 
beer in the higher ranks of life in England, although 
it rarely, I believe, leads past the bounds of a deco- 
rous hilarity, is very great when compared with that 
of well-to-do people in the United States whose 
grandfathers were born in the country. Unmitigated 
water is rarely drunk, and is generally regarded with 
mingled aversion on the score of taste and dread on 
the score of health. " What is that you are drinking, 

G ? " said an elderly gentleman to his nephew 

as we sat after the ladies had withdrawn ; and he 
peered curiously down the board at the young man's 
glass. " Water, sir," replied the young fellow. 
" Hm-m-m ! wa-ater," and then a puzzled silence. 
He did not say, as his most gracious majesty William, 
the fourth of that name, is reported by Greville to 
have been graciously pleased to say on a like occa- 
sion, " I '11 be damned if any man shall drink water 
at my table ; " but evidently he was very royally 
minded upon the subject. I should have remem- 
bered the occasion, even if my host had not empha- 
sized it by speaking to his nephew ; for it was, I be- 
lieve, the only one at which I saw pure water drunk 
at a dinner-table in England. I do not remember 
even one lady who confined herself to the simple 
element ; and I am speaking now not of dinner-par- 
ties, or of occasions at all festive, but of the daily 
habits of families in which I had the honor and the 
great pleasure of being received without ceremony 
and made quite at home. Upon this point there is a 
corroborative passage in the very amusing "Court Et- 
iquette," by Professor Fanning, of Toronto, Canada, 



476 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

who speaks, we are informed, witli the authority of 
one who has received instruction in the Lord Cham- 
berlain's office. He say that at family dinners " young- 
ladies are limited to three glasses of light wines, 
while married ladies are accustomed to drink some- 
times six." A matron in France may go to the Pa- 
lais Royal ; in England her privilege is six instead of 
three glasses of wine at dinner. Then there is the 
wine and the beer which is drunk at luncheon, which 
is a substantial meal at about two o'clock, with a 
joint and a pudding, and not unlikely a glass of sherry 
and water before bed.^ 

But the constant and somewhat free drinking of 
wine on the part of the ladies was not all that at- 
tracted my attention. I was astonished at a certain 
disregard of simplicity in their potations. Their 
drinking was multiform, and in what was to me a 
somewhat disturbing way. I have seen English la- 
dies, after having had their full allowance of sherry, 
champagne, and claret at dinner, drink down a tum- 
blerful of beer, or even of black porter ! The first 
time I saw this done the performer was an actress ; 
and as some of the ladies of her vocation are said to 
be not quite so scrupulous as to certain social mat- 
ters as, let us say, the leading ladies of the Baptist 
and Methodist " persuasions " are, I supposed that I 
might set down the pointer to this slight professional 
eccentricity. None the less, however, was I puzzled 
to account for the unfastidiousness of palate which 

1 " The public has been disgusted this week by the story of a number of 
married women in Birmingham getting drnnlv and causing a street row at 
noonday. The exposure revealed the fact that a certain number of these 
females, belonging to what is called the respectable classes, have been in' the 
habit of meeting at a certain public house for the purpose of drinking to 
excess." — Frances Power Cobbe, Reechoes. 



A NATIONAL VICE. 477 

could desire, and the stoutness of stomach which, 
after sherry, champagne, and claret, could retain, a 
great glass of porter with a tawny head upon it, at 
the mere sight of which even my masculine, and I had 
thought very submissive, gorge rose in rebellion. But 
as to ID y former supposition I was entirely wrong; 
for I saw ladies of position and of rank, after dinner 
was over (not regularly, but occasionally), drink off 
a glass of very strong beer, so strong, indeed, that 
one glass of it alone would turn the heads of most 
" American " women. My fair friends in England 
were, however, not disturbed by it; or certainly they 
were not before they retired from the drawing-room. ^ 
This looking upon wine or beel" as a necessity of 
life gives to the condemnation of malefactors, public 
and domestic, to a diet of bread and water, which is 
so often referred to in oar literature, a severer signifi- 
cance than it has to us in "America." I remember 
that when I used as a boy to read and to hear of this 
aggravation of punishment, I supposed the depriva- 
tion to be, as it was in my own case, when under cor- 
rective discipline, of milk, of tea, and of coffee, — 
but the privation which it really did impose was that 
of beer and wine ; and indeed the form of the sen- 
tence dates from a time when coffee and tea were un- 
known. But to an " American," or I should rather 
say to a Yankee, who does not belong to the drinking 

i A lad)' who had lived many years in England expressed to a friend of 
mine her gratification at these remarks about English ladies, because they 
would tend to relieve some of the latter from misapprehension on their 
visits to this country, where their mere continuance of a custom common 
among women of their condition at home would be likeh' to subject them 
to unpleasant and unjust remark. And yet I have known New York 
women of the best position and the highest charactQ- drink off the larger 
part of a pint bottle of champagne just before going out to a party in the 
height of the season, to keep them up and make them brilliant. 



478 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

classes, the deprivation of wine, beer, and spirits dur- 
ing imprisonment would not add appreciably to bis 
discomfoi't. Not so with Britons of any class. 

A short time ago a gentleman of my acquaintance, 
an officer in the army, received a letter from a friend 
in England, introducing an actress who had come 
here with intentions of pursuing her profession. He 
called, and as he was taking leave he asked the lady 
if there was anything that he could do for her, mean- 
ing any service that he could render her as a stran- 
ger. " Oh, yes,'" she at once replied, " do send me a 
case of table claret ; for in this dreadful place I 'm 
expected to drink wa-a-ter or some nasty washy stuff 
they call lager, and I 'm so famished for some wine 
that I think I shall die. Do send me some, please." 
I am sorry to say that my friend did not send the 
case of wine, and was so taken aback by such a re- 
quest on a first interview that his first call was his 
last ; and indeed the lady, disgusted, I suppose, with 
a country where she was expected to drink water, 
went back to England without making an engage- 
ment. He was a little too shy and suspicious. Such 
a request from an actress to a British officer would 
not startle him as being much, if at all, out of the 
way, and almost any officer would have so heartily 
sympathized with this lady in her privation that he 
would have been glad to supply this deficiency in her 
commissariat. 

In London streets I myself had similar requests 
made to me, although on a much smaller scale. These 
requests were altogether new to me, and caused me 
some astonishment. They were made as I was stroll- 
ing in New Bond Street or in Regent Street. I de- 
clined compliance at first ; but one evening, as I was 



A NATIONAL VICE, 479 

returning to my lodgings from dinner at a restaurant, 
a youngish woman dressed plainly in black, not at 
all pretty, but with a modest and pleasant manner, 
stepped up to me and said in a sweet voice, " Please, 
sir, would you kindly give me a glass of wine? " I 
reflected that I was a perfect stranger there, and 
might do with impunity what I should not think of 
doing at home (as English and " American " ladies 
go to the Mabille in Paris), and wishing to see how 
the thing was done, I said. Yes, and asked where we 
should get it. " There 's a wine-room, yonder," she 
replied, pointing across Regent Street. I vv^ent with 
her ; and surely there could not be a place less adapted 
to lure man or woman to mirth or pleasure. It was 
a small room not more than twelve feet square. The 
floor was of deal boards, not positively dirty, but not 
too clean. The walls were of a dingy nondescript 
color, and without ornament or decoration of any 
kind. Across one side, opposite the door, was a deal 
counter or bar, also dingy. On the floor were a chair 
or two and two or three small casks, upon which men 
were sitting. Behind the counter were other small 
casks with taps. So utterly doleful and forlorn a 
drinking place I had never seen. But the men were 
decently dressed, and were chatting pleasantly ; their 
manner was decorous, and they were plainly not 
roughs. I asked my fair friend what wine she would 
have. She said, Port ; whereupon two glasses with 
stems, but with straight sides, holding about as much 
as a small champagne glass, were filled from one of 
the casks and placed upon the counter. I gave one 
to her, and touching my lips to the other as she took 
a draught, I paid for the wine, and setting down my 
glass bade her good-evening and went out. 



480 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

I had not gone fai- before I heard the pattering of 
feet and the rustling of skirts behind me. She laid 
her hand gently upon my arm, and said in a tone of 
distress that went to my heart, "Oh, sir, sir, how 
could you treat me so ? To take me there and leave 
me to drink my wine alone ! You might have waited. 
I was so ashamed." Her manner was perfectly sim- 
ple and decorous ; and she was evidently hurt. I 
apologized and explained to her that I was a stranger, 
quite unfamiliar with the etiquette of such places, 
and that I supposed she merely wanted the refresh- 
ment of a glass of wine, which I gave her with pleas- 
ure. " Well, well," she answered, " I suppose you 
meant no harm ; but it was awfully hard. Thanks, 
sir ; good-night ! " and we went our several ways. 
I was truly sorry ; but I had not sup23osed that a 
woman who asked me for wine in the street would 
mind much how she got it, or under what circum- 
stances she drank it. Familiar as 1 have been from 
my boyhood witli the streets of New York, at all 
hours of the day and night, this was my first experi- 
ence of the kind ; and it was my last in England, 
although the same request was made of me again and 
again, by day as well as by night. 

Applications of this kind to a "gentleman" are 
of the commonest occurrence in England. Any in- 
formation or assistance that I asked was generally 
given to me with good-natured alacrity, and without 
any intimation that a "tip" was expected; but in 
the case of persons of inferior condition, I always 
found that sixpence was accepted with pleasure, and 
as being quite in order. More than once, though, 
when my inquiries had extended into something like 
conversation, I found an answer to my last query 



A NATIONAL VICE. 481 

rounded off with, " And I should be very 'appy to 
drink your 'elth, sir." Of course I produced the 
means of securing such disinterested wishes for my 
well-being. 

Once, however, I was tempted to say, " Oh, my 
health is so good that it does n't need drinking ; " 
but I was not reviled, as I had expected, and I may 
almost say hoped, to be. There was only a bewil- 
dered stare, and a silent turning away. The only 
sign that I saw of a ruffled temper from the absence 
of an expected fee was from a French waiter at a 
first-class restaurant. The little account which he 
presented had across the top, printed in large let- 
ters, " Attendance charged in the bill," which is 
common in England. Determined to see what this 
meant, when the waiter returned with my change, I 
put it all into my pocket ; whereupon this French- 
man, who had been all bows and smiles and pleased 
alacrity, instantly became so insolent in his manner 
that I was tempted to make a complaint against him 
and test the question as to attendance. But I re- 
flected that I was " only a passenger," and merely 
retaining in my pocket the sixpence that otherwise 
would have found its way into his hand, I went out. 

To return to the subject of drink. It is generally 
expected that when a " gentleman" goes among men 
of lower classes, and talks with them, he will, in the 
common phrase there, "stand something," which 
means pay for beer for all ; and as a pint may be had 
for twopence, the tax is not very heavy. If he re- 
mains while the beer is drunk, one spokesman says 
for all, "Your very good 'elth, sir." The beer is 
drained off and the drinkers wipe their lips with the 
backs of their hands, and the backs of their hands 

31 



482 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

upon a remote and invisible part of their trousers. 
I observed the pronunciation of \lth in these cases. 
It is not merely health with the h suppressed, but a 
gulping of the syllable low down in the throat. In- 
deed, this pronunciation of I is as much a distinctive 
mark of lower-class English as the suppression of h 
or its superfluous addition. The higher classes give 
it with exactly the same sound that it has in the 
speech of educated Yankees. 

Men are, however, not alone in expecting a gentle- 
man to stand something. As I was walking through 
a narrow street in Birmingham, I saw a comfortable- 
looking dame of decent mien at the door of a little 
hou-se, and, asking her some trifling question, fell into 
talk with her. She soon invited me in, with that 
freedom of hospitality which I found common wher- 
ever I went. I entered what proved to be her kitchen 
and living-room. It was very tidy and orderly. 
There was a fire in the grate, and the kettle was 
singing and pufiing upon the hob. There were two 
other women of her sort there, chatting (everybody 
in England seems to have time and inclination to 
talk), and they kindly allowed me to enter into con- 
versation with them. But erelong one of them said, 
"Per'aps the gentleman would like to treat us." I 
was startled, for it was my fourth day in England ; 
but of course assented. When the question was put, 
" Shall it be beer or gin ? " I announced to my enter- 
tainers that I was perfectly indifferent on that point, 
and taking out half a crown gave it to one of them 
and bade them good-morning ; for I must confess that 
in my inexperience upon the subject of gin and beer 
in England, I felt very doubtful into what hands I 
had fallen. The probability is that they were per- 



A NATIONAL VICE. 483 

fectly respectable people of their class. What was 
so strange to me was merely a custom of the country. 
Of quite a different sort was an equally novel ex- 
perience I had in London. One night about ten 
o'clock, as I was passing through a street which 
crosses the upper part of Regent Street, a door sud- 
denly opened and let a flood of light upon the pave- 
ment, and down a flight of stairs came, in some dis- 
order, a little troop of men and women who were 
hilarious with some potation more subtle and exhila- 
rating than beer. They were plainly all flown with 
wine. To my great astonishment one of the fair bac- 
chantes rushed up to me and, flinging her arms around 
my neck, broke forth into expressions of admiration 
and affection, the genuineness of which it would have 
been cruel — to both parties — to doubt. Neverthe- 
less, I was coy and shrank away ; and I am sure that 
if I ever blushed, I blushed then. True, it was 
dark, and my confusion was concealed; but what of 
that ? 

" Nocte quidem ; seel luna videt, sed sidera testes 
Intendunt oculos." 

I gently disengaged myself, and a few steps set me 
free from the first and only encounter that I had in 
England with a woman whom drink had carried be- 
yond the bounds of decorum. Need I say that the 
conduct of this young person and that of some others 
whom I have mentioned does not in any way implicate 
that of any respectable woman in England, however 
lowly her condition ? As to the special "evil" of 
which she was a signal illustration, I shall say noth- 
ing more than I have said before in passing allusions. 
I found it most rife in London, in Oxford, and in 
Canterbury. This incident is told of here because it 



484 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

is characteristic and distinctive ; for familiar as I am 
with town life in " America," by night as well as by 
day, I never before, either in my own experience or 
in that of another, knew of any occurrence like it. 

As to the disposition to drink intoxicating liquors 
which has made drunkenness a national vice in Eng- 
land, it is to be said that there are reasons for it 
which do not exist in other countries. England lacks 
good water, and produces no wine. Although I 
drank much less water while I was there than I ever 
did during the same length of time before, I did drink 
much more than I am sure any native of the island 
does in thrice that time. But only twice did I have 
a draught of pure "soft " water. Nor in my walks 
and drives did I see one spring. It needs hardly to 
be said that there are springs enough there; but I 
think that in the southern part of the country, at 
least, the}^ must be much less common than they are 
in New England and in the Middle States, where one 
can hardly take a country walk without coming upon 
one of these clear, cool, over-brimming cups of pure 
refreshment offered by the hand of Nature. Many 
people cannot drink the water of England unqualified 
without being made ill. Then the climate itself 
makes stimulants more welcome, if not more neces- 
sary, there than elsewhere ; and it also increases the 
ability to bear stimulating drink. Hence, we may 
presume, the opinion of Addison's innkeeper (" Free- 
liolder," No. 22), although it is open to the objection 
of being professional and somewhat interested, that 
" for constant use there was no liquor like a cup of 
English water, provided there was enough malt in it." 

I was surprised not only at the quantity that I 
could drink at any time and at all times with impu- 



A NATIONAL VICE. 485 

nity, and with apparently good effect, but at the 
eagerness with which my whole body seemed to im- 
bibe it. I shall never forget a certain place — it was 
in Fleet Street, I believe — where porter was to be 
had at a penny a pot. It is w^ell known for the qual- 
ity of its tap, and a friend took me to it one day, 
saying that he would " stand tuppence " and give me 
a treat. We had just had a hearty breakfast ; but as 
I turned up my glass of this black fluid I seemed to 
absorb a good part of it on its passage down my 
throat. It was of delicious flavor, cool without being 
cold, and of an inexpressible lightness, notwithstand- 
ing its thick, heavy look. There was a stream of 
people going in and out, and I was told that the 
stream of people and of porter did not cease from 
morning till night. In " America " I should as soon 
think of drinking pure alcohol directly after break- 
fast as a glass of porter. 

These material and consequent physiological con- 
ditions should always be considered in judging Eng- 
lish habits of drinking. Moreover, there is the tra- 
ditionary custom. Time out of mind beer has been 
the common beverage in England. It has not been 
so in " America." The establishment of public 
breweries requires time and capital, which the early 
colonists had not to spare for that purpose; nor had 
they in their small households the means of supply- 
ing themselves with home-brewed malt-liquor. Con- 
sequently the stimulating beverages of this country 
were until lately rum, cider, whisky, and imported 
wine. The first was nearest at hand in the West In- 
dies, and was afterwards made in New England ; the 
second came into use soon after the apple orchards 
reached maturit}'^; whisky began to be made after 



V 



486 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

there was grain enough to spare from making bread. 
Wine was a luxmy. Hence in the early colonial 
days women and children commonly drank no bever- 
age of this kind, except a little cider, wine being a 
luxury for the wealthy ; and this custom, coming of 
necessity, and strengthened in New England by puri- 
tan asceticism, extended a gradually diminishing in- 
fluence even to our own day. Beer, although not 
unknown, was rare, and was regarded, perhaps not 
altogether without reason, as a very coarse drink. 
For example, I can say that although not unfamiliar 
in my boyhood with cider and good wine (including, 
by the way, such Madeira as I did not taste in Eng- 
land) I had not drunk four pints of beer before I left 
college. In England a boy might drink four pints in 
a day, although he might not do so every day. There 
the custom of brewing beer at home is still kept up 
at many of the great houses. I expressed surprise at 
this, as brewing is such a troublesome operation, par- 
ticularly when performed on a small scale, and as 
such excellent beer may be had by the cask or the 
dozen, left at any door, even in the country. The 
reply was characteristic. It was that experiment 
having shown that the cost of the home-brewed beer 
and the public brewers' beer was about the same, 
those who had large households chose to keep up 
their old custom. Plainly, if home-brewing had been 
a little more costly, economy would have kicked the 
beam, and old custom would have gone up into the 
air. 

The outcome of all this is that water as a fluid for 
internal application is treated with very little respect 
in England. Possibly so much is applied by nature 
to the inhabitants externally that they think they 



A NATIONAL VICE. 487 

have quite enough of it in that way. Of every other 
thing drinkable you see a plentiful supply all around 
you ; of bitter-beer pint pots in rows, of fat ale vats, 
of claret tuns, of crusted port good store ; but Dives 
did not beg Lazarus for wine ; and if you have that 
thirst upon you that nothing but cold water can slake, 
you must needs, like the rich man in the parable, put 
up your special petition for it. And if you ask a 
butler for a glass of water at the dinner-table, not 
improbably he will receive the request with such a 
look of fish-eyed wonder as he might put on if a 
chance whale should wallow into the dining-room and 
ask for the material for a spout ; and then you may 
see him turn to a footman • — lower means suit lower 
ends — and say, " Tubbs, ah, ah, gloss of — ah — 
wa-a-ter." 

Notwithstanding the enormous quantity of beer 
and wine and spirits now consumed in England, — to 
the value of nearly one thousand millions sterling 
(.£987,320,660) in the seven years preceding 1879, — 
and the besotted condition of so large a number of the 
lowest class (and the largest class) of the people, the 
consumption and the drunkenness are gradually di- 
minishing ; not positively, but in proportion to the 
population. Those who had observed society there 
for many years assured me that the change for the 
better was appreciable, although not great ; and a 
lady who was the mistress of a house in which the 
family consisted almost entirely of men, and in which 
dinner-parties, mostly of men, were frequent, told me 
that she, who controlled the whole household sup- 
plies, had remarked a steady but slow diminution 
during the last fifteen or twenty years in the quan- 
tity of wine required, although the number of the en- 



488 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

tertainments 'and of the guests at each had somewhat 
increased. England seems, therefore, to be gradually 
freeing herself from the vice which for so many cent- 
uries has been regarded as national in her. It will 
be long before she is able to cast it off completely ; 
for the subject is involved with one of the most im- 
portant principles of constitutional liberty, the free- 
dom of individual action, the liberty of the subject or 
the citizen. Moreover, in England the brewers and 
the licensed victuallers are a great power. Nor is 
abstemiousness so easy or so desirable as it is in 
"America; " and hardest although most desirable of 
all things everywhere is, not abstemiousness, but 
temperance. 



CHAPTER XXI. 

THE HEAUT OF ENGLAND. 

It was on a bright Sunday morning in October 
that I set oat from Warwick for Stratford-on-Avon. 
Autumn was more than half gone ; and yet the al- 
most cloudless sky was one of a succession of smiling 
welcomes which, meeting me in the southern coun- 
ties, had gone with me to Cambridge and to Oxford, 
and now followed me into Warwickshire, the heart 
of England, for so this most midland shire is called. 

I see that I have just spoken of southern counties 
and a midland shire. It cannot be strictly said that 
those two parts of the country are thus distinguished ; 
but although " shire " and " county " are synonyms 
to a certain extent, there is a difference in their use 
which is in a certain degree distinctive. Although 
shire is the older and the truly English word, all the 
shires are counties, but all the counties are not shires. 
Kent, Sussex, Essex, Surrey, Norfolk, and Suffolk 
are not called shires ; and their people speak of go- 
ing to or coming from " the shires," meaning the 
rest of England. I observed evidences of some little 
local pride in these people who " did not belong to 
the shires." Whence is the origin of this pride I do 
not certainly know ; but I am inclined to think that 
it has two causes quite unsuspected by the people 
who have it, the feeling being traditional, while the 
facts from which it sprung are long forgotten. These 



490 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

are, first, that these regions have been English longer 
than any other part of the island. The eastern and 
southeastern shore of the country, from its position, 
was that on which the Saxons first got foot-hold; and 
the names there show the simple early distinctions 
made between themselves by the new-comers : Nor- 
folk = north folk, Suffolk = south folk, Essex = east 
Saxons, Sussex = south Saxons. The other reason 
for the local pride is that these counties make up the 
larger part of the country which was not thoroughly 
conquered by the Danes and completely subjected to 
Danish influence. Evidence of this original English 
condition appears in the fact that these counties are 
not named from their county towns, as is the case 
with the large majority of the counties : for example, 
York, Yorkshire ; Derby, Derbyshire ; Oxford, Ox- 
fordshire ; Warwick, Warwickshire ; Chester, Che- 
shire. But of Essex the county town is Chelmsford, 
of Sussex Chichester, while in Kent the county town 
might be said to take its name from the county, — 
Canterbury, the town or borough of Kent. When 
the Danes were driven out, it became necessary to 
reform and make again thoroughly English the coun- 
ties in which they had for many, generations sub- 
verted the English government, even to the oblit- 
eration of the old names ; and in doing this it was 
convenient to name the counties from their chief 
towns. It is not in the ordinary course of things 
for counties and county towns to have the same 
name, as may be seen by comparing those of New 
England, New York, and Virginia, for example, even 
although the names there are of such very modern 
origin. 

But to return from names to places. My bright 



THE HEART OF ENGLAND. 491 

Warwickshire day was not so pleasant as it might 
have been, or as some other bright clays, or even as 
many cloudy days that I had seen in England, For 
the east wind was blowing, and had blown steadily 
for forty-eight hours. Now an east wind in England 
is not at all like an east wind here. To us it brings 
clouds, and, if long continued, a heavy, driving rain. 
The dreaded east wind of England corresponds to 
our northwest wind, the wind with which our sky 
clears after a northeast storm. And, like that wind, 
it is, to me at least, the most dreadful of the skyey 
influences. It blows pitilessly, steadily, and pierces 
you through and through with a dry, rough-edged 
blast ; it aggravates its essential qualities by expos- 
ing you to the glare of sun and sky unveiled by 
any cloud, unsoftened by any mist ; it deludes you 
with a show of brightness, and then stings your 
cheeks and grinds your joints together, and rudely 
takes liberties with your hat, your hair, and your 
clothing. And yet the weather that our northwest 
wind brings is what many people, merely, it would 
seem, because the sun is visible, praise as beautiful 
and bracing ; uttering their eulogies with watery 
eyes, dripping noses, red, tingling cheeks, and a 
scowling brow, as they face the pitiless glare of the 
unmitigated sun.^ 

Warwick is reckoned a Shakespearean town ; but I 
did not particularly care for it on that account, my 
liking for Shakespeare not taking the form of relic- 
worship or house-haunting. But Warwick has in- 
trinsic interest for every student of England in the 
past, for every lover of architectural beauty, or of 

1 This wind is called by Crevecajui-,. in his Letters of an Americnn 
Farmer, "the tyrant of America." 



492 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

that beauty of reclaimed nature wliicli is found in 
perfection in great English parks and around English 
country-seats and farm-houses. And my visit to 
Warwick was marked by one of those quiet, unosten- 
tatious acts of attention of which I met with so 
many, and from entire strangers, that I am sure that 
they were merely a mainfestation of characteristic 
kindness and hospitality in English people. A gen- 
tleman living in one of the beautiful suburbs of Bir- 
mingham, hearing accidentally that I was in Eng- 
land, searched me out by post and telegraph, and 
offered to show me Warwickshire, of which I found 
that he knew not only all the great places, but 
every by-path and every nook and corner. He sent 
me full and particular directions as to all that I 
ought to see, and asked me where he should meet 
me, if I did not choose to come first to Birmingham. 
It was more convenient for me to go there last, and 
I took him at his word and asked him to meet me 
at Warwick ; and there he came, we seeing each 
other for the first time in that venerable town. He, 
a busy man, gave up three days to guiding me 
through his county. I met with so much of this 
kindness that I never can forget it, but shall cherish 
the memory of it gratefully while I live. 

Warwick is one of those towns, of which there are 
not a few in England, for the existence of which it is 
difficult to account. Why people should have gath- 
ered their dwellings together at this spot in sufficient 
numbers to make a large town is not easily discover- 
able. It has no trade, no manufactures, no cathe- 
dral, no schools, no centralizing attraction. How the 
people live there is a mystery. For visiting stran- 
gers can do little to support the inhabitants of such 



THE HEART OF ENGLAND. 49S 

a place ; and whence do the Warwickers get the 
money wherewith to pay each other ? The castle, 
part of which was built before the Conquest, must 
be the nucleus around which the town slowly gath- 
ered through centuries, until it stopped growing. For 
there is nothing new about it. ' On the contrary, it 
has a charming air of having been finished long ago, 
of having got its growth, and fulfilled its purpose. 
I did not see a house in it, except in one street, that 
did not seem to be at least a century old, and many 
of its dwellings were thrice that age. These English 
towns of from five to fifteen thousand inhabitants, 
which have the respectable air given by an appear- 
ance of stability and comfort not of yesterday, and 
which have no ragged outskirts where cheap and 
showy houses are going up, and land lies waste, wait- 
ing for improvement, while it changes hands yearly 
from bankrupt speculator to bankrupting speculator, 
and into which even a railway cannot bring the nine- 
teenth-century bustle, seem to me, next to a genuine 
country house, the most perfect places imaginable for 
human habitation. You can walk out of them from 
any point, through clean, well-paved streets, in fifteen 
minutes ; and then you are in the midst of green 
fields, great trees, and pretty hedges, on roads which 
are neither dusty in dry weather nor muddy in wet. 
Unless you live in London, or in one of three or four 
other great commercial or manufacturing towns, you 
are within easy reach of a country ramble ; and even 
in London you are within easier reach of the next 
best thing of the kind, a walk through great parks, 
where the velvet verdure under foot and the ma- 
jestic trees above your head both seem to have pre- 
pared their beauty for you centuries ago, and in 



494 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

whicli, altliougii they are well kept, you are not 
warned to keep off the grass. You do not have to 
stand up in a street-car and hang on by the straps, or 
be squeezed flat on the platform for half an hour be- 
fore you can get to the nearest entrance of your only 
ground for quiet, healthful recreation. Of all the old 
towns in England that combine convenient smallness 
of size with a certain civic dignity and that air of 
being finished which I have already mentioned, and 
with the attractions of easily accessible parks and 
gardens of exquisite beauty, Oxford, as I have al- 
ready said, is the most admirable. But as one can- 
not reasonably ask always for the beauties of Oxford, 
a man must be very exacting if he cannot be pleased 
with those of other places, even of one so veiy infe- 
rior as Warwick. 

To Warwick Castle, the gate of which is within 
a stone's-throw of the main street of the town, I 
went alone, my self-elected guide having not yet ar- 
rived. It was very strange to turn out of a paved, 
gas-lit street, lined on either side with shops and 
dingy brick houses, into a gloomy causeway cut deep 
through the solid rock, shaded with great trees, and 
winding gently up an acclivity to a grim gray mass 
of feudal masonry; and such is the approach to War- 
wick Castle. The buildings, which stand around a 
large grassy base-court, are of various periods, but all 
of great age, one of the towers having been erected 
in Saxon times. I pulled the handle at the end of 
a chain hanging at the principal entrance, and was 
admitted. Within I found some half a dozen per- 
sons, decent English folk of the middle class, waiting 
their turn to go through the apartments. It is the 
custom in these great show places for an attendant to 



THE HEART OF ENGLAND. 495 

make the tour as soon as a sufficient number of sight- 
seers have assembled to make it worth while to do 
so; and at Warwick Castle this happens usually 
about every hour or two during daylight, when the 
family is not in residence. 

Hardly had I glanced at my companions when a 
large and elderly woman advanced toward us and 
began to speak. She was a hard-featured female, 
with a slight, ragged, stiff mustache and big, stony 
teeth. She was dressed in black, and wore a formi- 
dable cap. She began her office immediately, with- 
out the slightest greeting or preface, plunging directly 
in medias res, and not addressing herself particularly 
to us, but sending out her voice into the great room 
as an owl might hoot in a barn. It was somewhat 
startling to find one's self in a strange place filled 
with armor and other relics, and to have a stout 
human female in mustaches begin thus as if she were 
touched off like one of the old firelocks : " The hold 
baronial 'all ; this is the 'all that was destryd by fire ; 
hancient harmor ; Guy of Warwick's 'elmet ; hetrus- 
kin vawzes," etc., pointing with a large emphatic 
forefinger at each object which she named-. Her pro- 
nunciation of " vase," vawz, one of the extreme affec- 
tations of the extremely elegant people at the end of 
the last century and the beginning of this, was in 
amusing contrast with her ill treatment of the letter 
A, and the sounds which she gave to other words. 
People in her condition of life in England not un- 
commonly have some well-preserved affectation of 
this kind in speech or in manner, to which they hold 
as a sign of superior position. 

As we went through the rooms I could not but ob- 
serve in my companions what had impressed itself on 



496 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

me before at Windsor Castle and other grand sliow 
houses, that the English people who visit them do so 
chiefly to see the state in which majesty and nobility 
live ; to look at the grand furniture, the gilded cor- 
nices, and other splendors of the apartments, with 
little or no interest in architecture or historic associa- 
tions, and with the density of stocks and stones as to 
the beauties of the objects of art which are generally 
found in such places. A queen's or duchess's state 
bed, hideous and ponderous, and overwhelmed with 
stuffy embroidered curtains, attracts more attention 
from them than the surcoat and gauntlets that the 
Black Prince wore at Poictiers, or a masterpiece of 
Titian or Vandyke. As far as the average native 
Briton is concei-ned, these visits are pilgrimages of 
prying snobbery. In Warwick Castle are some noble 
pictures by the great masters of the sixteenth cent- 
ury ; but these, pointed out by the tremendous fore- 
finger, and set forth as to subject and painter in a 
somewhat amazing style both of speech and criticism 
by our guide (as, for example, " Ed of a hox by Bug- 
gim," meaning Berghem), were hardly glanced at. 
One gentleman did ask, " Oo 's the hold fellow 
hover the door ? " but suddenly corrected himself 
with, " Ho ! it 's a woman." When, however, we 
came to a gorgeous table, the top of which our guide 
informed us was " hall of preshis stones," there was 
an eager looking and a pricking up of ears ; and as 
the pudgy, strong-nailed thumb with which she chose 
to point out its splendors moved over its variegated 
sm'face, and paused on one spot and another, as she 
explained in a voice husky with importance, "liagate, 
hamethyst, honyx," etc., she was attentively followed; 
and when she closed her description with the an- 



THE HEART OF ENGLAND. 497 

nouncement, " This table cost two thousand paounds," 
she evidently awakened a feeling of delighted awe. 
What was chain armor that had gone through the 
first crusade, what w^ere Raphael and Titian and 
Rubens, to that I 

Among the paintings at Warwick is a portrait of 
strange impressiveness. It is that of a gentleman in 
the costume of the middle of the sixteenth century, 
standing with his left hand resting near the hilt of 
his sword, and looking out of the canvas straight into 
your eyes. Upon a plinth against which he leans is 
an inscription in Spanish, telling that he was one 
who feared nothing, not even death. ^ There have 
been other men who were as fearless ; but no such 
portrait of any one of them, as I believe. I never 
saw a painted face of such vitality and character, 
never painted eyes that seemed so plainly to have a 
thinking brain behind them, never painted lips that 
so seemed as if they could speak but would not. 
Then the perfect simplicity and ease of the position, 
the faultless drawing, and the color, of which the 
mere harmonies are a perpetual delight, unite with 
its other merits to make a picture the sight of which 
is worth a pilgrimage. I had seen Vandykes and 
Rubenses and Sir Joshuas almost by the acre, and 
it was with a memory of the best of these, and 
also of what Raphael and Titian and Velasquez and 
Holbein have done in this way, fresh in my mind, 
that I felt that this portrait by Muroni, a painter 
almost unknown to me, is one of the greatest in the 
world. Certainly I never saw one, or the engraving 
of one, that is its superior. 

As we passed through one room our guide said 

1 Aqui esto siu temore y della muerte no he pavor. 
32 



498 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

witli an affable air and a condescending wave of 
the hand, " The view of the park from these win- 
dows is thought to be one of the most beautiful in 
Hengland." I stepped forward into the deep em- 
brasure and looked out. She had spoken truly. The 
beauty of the scene in its kind could not be over- 
rated. Bright, rich greensward was shadowed with 
clumps of oaks and gigantic cedars that spread 
broad, sombre fans, almost like roofs, high above the 
grass. The soft, sweet blue of the sky was filled 
with fleecy clouds full of light, and here and there 
the verdure seemed to blaze like a pavement of 
emerald. Through all the little Avon, here a brawl- 
ing, freely flowing stream, wound from dark to light. 
The park stretched away, mingling with the distance, 
till it seemed as if all England must be a park, of 
which Warwick Castle was the centre, the very heart 
of the heart of England. And just below was the 
castle mill, whose turning wheel prettily suggested 
that union of the practical with the beautiful, and 
even with the stately, which is a characteristic trait 
of English country homes, whether they are castles 
or granges. 

After making the tour of the apartments, includ- 
ing the chapel, where we were told that " there was 
service hevery day by their hown chaplain when the 
family was hat the castle," we retraced our steps, 
and my companions went out. I remained ; and a 
slip of paper given me by a friend procured me the 
privilege of going through the rooms again alone and 
looking at the various objects of interest which they 
contained, at my leisure. I lingered so long, chiefly 
over the paintings, that a new party of visitors had 
gathered while I was still making my solitary round. 



THE HEART OF ENGLAND. 499 

And then I heard, far off in the distance, but dis- 
tinctly, the same sound with which I was greeted, i 
" The hold baronial 'all — hancient harmor — he- / 
truskin vawzes — hagate, hamethyst, honyx — this ' 
table cost two thousand paounds," and so forth, 
word for word, letter for letter, haitch for haitch. 
And when 1 reflected that this good woman went 
over the same ground, day after day, and many 
times a day, pointing out the same objects to knots 
of gaping sight-seers, I reproached myself for my 
criticism of her style of explanation, and bethought 
me of the Jew 'clothes-dealer's reply to Coleridge, 
who asked him, " Jew, why cannot you say old 
clothes instead of old clo'?" — " Christian, if you 
had to say old clothes, as often as I do, you would be 
glad to say old clo', or anything else to shorten it." 
Nevertheless, this obtrusion of housekeepers and 
vergers and warders and sextons is the great draw- 
back to the enjoyment of the places under their 
care. I was fortunate in being able to free myself 
from it on other occasions. 

One of the most interesting places in Warwick is 
the Leicester hospital. It was founded by Robert 
Dudley, Amy Robsart's Dudley and Queen Eliza- 
beth's Earl of Leicester, for twelve old men, who are 
called brethren, and a master. It is a fine and well- 
preserved specimen of the domestic architecture of the 
time; many-gabled, and with dark oak beams show- 
ing on the outside, the interstices being filled with 
plaster, — suggesting a man whose skeleton has struck 
through his skin. I think that it is the finest example 
of this style that I saw, except Speke Hall in Lan- 
cashire, which is peerless, outside and in ; in which 
the walls and the ceiling of the dining-room are rough 



500 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

with ricli carving in dark oak, and wliere one of the 
bay windows is of such a size that it has on one side a 
larger fire-place than 1 ever saw here, even in the 
kitchen of an old New England farm-house. It is 
of architectural celebrity, but it is so remote from 
the line of travel, and so jealously guarded, that it is 
rarely visited by sti-angers. When I saw it, and 
others of its kind, I could understand Mr. Halliwell- 
Phillips's remark as to " America," that he " thought 
he could n't live comfortably in a country where there 
were no Elizabethan houses." In their union of the 
expression of simple domesticity with quiet stateli- 
ness, these houses have a charm which is unique. 
One could not comfortably live in a castle unless one 
were a wealthy peer ; but any man whose notion of a 
home is not limited to "a brown-stone front" might 
long to live in one of these Elizabethan houses. 

The brethren of the Leicester hospital wear, on 
state occasions, long gowns or cloaks, which have 
upon them metal badges formed of the device of the 
Bear and Ragged Staff ; and these badges are now 
the very same that were worn by the first brethren 
three hundred years ago, so carefully have they been 
preserved. The eldest of the brethren showed me 
about the place, and in explaining to me the nature 
of the institution, or the " foundation " as it is there 
called, 1 said to me, among other things, " Th' Herl o' 
Leicester d'ow'd this haouse for twel' hold men an' a 
master ; an' th' brethren comes out o' three pai'ishes, 
and none can come into 't but on'y they." Of a lit- 
tle house that I pointed out, he said, " That doant 
belong to we." This is a fair representation of the 
speech of a Warwickshire man of his condition. I 

1 " God save the foundation." — Much Ado About Nothing, V. 1. 



THE HEART OF ENGLAND. 501 

went with him into the kitchen, where the brethren 
sit and drink ale before the enormous fire-place, and" 
there he showed me an old three-legged oaken chair 
which had but lately been discovered in some nook 
or corner of the building, and Avhich I saw from the 
carving upon it was made by a Saxon craftsman, and 
probably antedated the Conquest. There, too, he 
showed me a little piece of embroidery worked by 
poor Amy Robsart. It was framed and hung up 
against the wall. The frame, he told me, had been 
paid for by "a gentleman in America," of whom I 
probably had never heard, " one Mr. Charles O'Conor, 
a great lawer." Mr. O'Conor had seen it " laying 
araoLind loose," and for Amy E,obsart's sake had fur- 
nished a frame for its proper preservation. 

The house stands upon a declivity, the road which 
leads to Stratford descending rapidly there ; and the 
chapel is built upon an arch over the street. The 
effect of this, as you approach Warwick and look up 
the hill, is pleasing and impressive, the tower ris- 
ing into the air almost with grandeur, although the 
building is comparatively small. This is worthy of 
remark as an example of the effect produced by the 
converse of that leveling and straightening mania 
which possesses all builders and that sort of folk here. 
Not a little of the beauty of the old towns and build- 
ings in England is owing to the fact that architects 
used their art to conform their structures to the 
natural features of the places in which they were 
erected, instead of making the places conform them- 
selves to the buildings. 

Warwick has a church, the chief interest of which 
to me was the Leicester chapel and the crypt. In the 
former are the tomb and effigies of the great Earl of 



502 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

Leicester, as he is called, and of Fulke Greville, tlie 
founder of the present Warwick faniih^, upon whose 
tomb it is recorded by his own wish that he was 
" servant to Queen Elizabeth, and friend to Sir Philip 
Sidney." He might have served a better mistress 
than that* vain, vacillating, lying, penurious terma- 
gant, who drove Cecil, the real ruler of England in 
her reign, almost mad, and whose one merit was that 
she knew a man when she saw him ; but he could not 
have had friendship for a nobler or more admirable 
gentleman than Sir Philip Sidney. But this struck 
me as I looked at the tomb : Who now would deem 
it a distinction to have it recorded upon his tomb 
that he w^as the friend of any man ? Is it that there 
are no gods among us, or that we have lost the fac- 
ulty of worship, except for two idols — Me and Mam- 
mon ? 

It was pleasant to see in this church two mural 
tablets set up in memory of two of the housekeepers 
at Warwick Castle. One of them recorded the fact 
that the subject of the inscription had held her po- 
sition for sixty years. Faithful service seems rarely 
forgotten in England. 

In the crypt, the mighty ribbed arches of which 
spring from one enormous pier, there is an article 
which has long gone out of use, — whether advan- 
tageously or not I shall not venture to say, — a duck- 
ing-stool, made for the public discipline of scolding 
women. This is one of the only two, I believe, that 
remain in England. It consists of a strong oaken 
frame on low wheels, from which a seat rises upon an 
inclined beam that works upon a pivot or axle. The 
scold was lashed into the seat, and then the " institu- 
tion " was drawn to the river-side at a convenient 



THE HEART OF ENGLAND. 503 

deep place, and rolled in until the patient sat just 
above the water. Then the land end of the beam 
was tipped up, and consequently the other end with 
its lading went down under the water, where it was 
allowed to remain not too long, and was then raised 
for breathing time. This process was repeated as 
often as it was thought beneficial to the lady under 
treatment, or necessary for the peace of her family 
and neighborhood. Whether husbands ever inter- 
ceded for wives thus disciplined, as wives do now 
sometimes for husbands who are unreasonably inter- 
fered with in the gentle sport of blacking their eyes 
or kicking their ribs, is not recorded. 

After dinner I asked for a hint as to the way of 
passing the hours before bedtime ; but in vain. No 
one could tell me what to do: " Warwick was a quiet 
place, with nothing going on." As I knew no one 
there, I was thrown upon my own resources, and sally- 
ing forth, I wandered about the toAvn. I met hardly 
a human creature ; nor did many of the houses show 
lights to cheer my lonely loitering. Erelong, how- 
ever, a sense of bustle stirred my ears, and following 
their guidance I soon came upon an open place which 
was fitfully lit up by the flaring light of many large 
petroleum lamps, or rather torches ; for they were 
without shades or chimneys. One side of the place 
was filled by three or four large booths, on the out- 
side of which were signs and transparencies ; and 
within each was a noise of hand-organs and of brazen 
instruments of music, so called. On some half a 
dozen stands in the open air various articles were ex- 
posed for sale. In the midst of all this some hundred 
people or so of the humbler sort were moving quietly 
about. I had plainly fallen upon the Saturday fair 



504 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

of Warwick ami its neighborliood. Tlie people of- 
fered little occasion of remark, being generally of 
that sober, respectable sort which is always uninter- 
esting. The shows proved to be equally dull and de- 
cent ; and even the vociferations of the showmen at the 
doors of the booths were remarkable only as evidence 
of an untiring strength of lungs. Soon, however, I 
was attracted by the performances of a dealer in crock- 
ery, wlio was disposing of his wares by the process 
known in England as a Dutch auction. A long, broad 
deal board, set upon two trestles, and covered with tea- 
pots, plates, tumblers, bowls, and piggins, formed his 
whole establishment. Before him a dozen or two of 
men and women were gathered in little knots. As I 
came up he was crying out at the top of his voice in 
praise of a huge and hideous teapot, which he held 
aloft. "Two shillins for this helegant harticle! 
Honly two shillins. You would n't get one loike it 
in Lunnon for arf a crown ; not for three shillin. 
Wouldn't you like it, ma'am? It 'ud look hele- 
gant on your tea-table." Silence. " Eighteen pence, 
then, for this lovely tea-pot! Look hat it ! " and he 
whisked off the lid, and held it and the pot abroad 
high in air in either hand. " Eighteen pence," — si- 
lence, — "and no one wants this splendid tea-pot at 
one shilling. Would n't you like it, ma'am, for nine- 
pence? " turning to an old woman wrapped in a huge 
rough shawl. He had found his purchaser. The 
ninepence went into his pocket, and the tea-pot dis- 
appeared under the shawl. He then went to a pile 
of plates, of which he took up two, and set them 
whirling on the tips of his fingers like a conjurer. 
"Look at them plates; as fine as any one ever eat a 
dinner off of. Who '11 have a dozen of 'em ? Only 



THE HEART OF ENGLAND. 505 

two shillins the dozen." He shouted a while, but 
no notice was taken of his invitation. Then he 
caught up two or three others, and shuffled them back 
and forth in his hands As if they were cards, making 
a great clatter. He flung them up into the air and 
caught them again. He dashed them down upon 
the board in seeming recklessness, calling attention 
to their soundness and strength. " The children 
could n't break them plates." But I saw that the 
skill and dexterity of his handling were such that the 
crockery was in no real danger. He seemed to wax 
furious in his excitement ; and flinging the plates up 
into the air one after another caught them again, and 
kept the round in motion, crying out all the while at 
the top of his voice. He danced back and forth, ad- 
dressing himself now to one group and now to an- 
other, and gradually diminishing the upset price of 
his goods until he reached his " very lowest figger." 
Then he paused ; and after a little hesitation one or 
two women stepped shyly forward and bought half a 
dozen each. After seeing him make one or two more 
sales in this manner, I turned away. It was growing 
late. The people began to disperse. They were put- 
ting out the lights in the show booths ; and I went 
to my inn. But something was going on even in 
Warwick, and my entertainment was better, I am 
sure, than it would have been at a theatre. 

Among the striking features of old English towns 
are the massive gates that are found standing in them 
across sonae of the principal streets. In olden time 
almost all these towns were walled. The walls have 
fallen into decay, and have been removed, but many 
of the gateways are left standing. Warwick has at 
least one such, through which I passed several times 



606 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

without observing anything in it to interest me par- 
ticularly, except its massiveness and its age. But 
one afternoon, as I was walking out of the town, I 
saw an exceeding small boy trying to drive an ex- 
ceeding big swine through this gate. The boy was 
one of the smallest I ever saw intrusted with any 
office, the beast was the hugest living pork that has 
yet come under my observation. He was a very long 
pig, but he also was a very broad one ; surely greater 
in girth than in length. His hams were so big that 
as he presented his vast rear to me he seemed to ob- 
scure a goodly part of the horizon, and as to the boy, 
they must for him have blotted out the whole heav- 
ens ; for the little man's head was not so high as the 
big beast's back. The group reminded me of Fal- 
staff's exclamation to his dwarfish page, " I do here 
walk before thee like a sow that hath overwhelmed 
all her litter but one." Now the pig, for some alto- 
gether piggish reason, did not wish to go through the 
gate. Perhaps he thought it was too small, although 
armies with banners had gone out of it to battle. He 
turned his head to one side and the other, willing to 
take the pathway which passed around the gate, 
through which his pigmy driver, however, was de- 
termined that he should go. Whereat the latter 
spread out his little hands, and applying them with 
all his little might to the haunches of the huge creat- 
ure tried to push him on. He might as well have 
pushed against the great tower of Warwick Castle. 
Then he patted the fat white hams, and coaxed and 
gently urged, but all in vain. Whereupon the dread- 
ful ingenuity of bpydom, early developed, came to 
his aid. Between the enormous haunches of the 
beast was an absurdly small corkscrew appendage, 



THE HEART OF ENGLAND. 507 

"whieli for any possible use that it could be to such a 
monster might just as well not have been. It sug- 
gested that tails, in the course of evolution, were 
passing away from pigs in their progress toward some 
more higlily developed animal of the future. But the 
boy put it to present and effective use. Reaching up 
to it as I had seen a lad reach to a door-knocker, he 
seized it, and with a hearty good-will gave it one 
more twist than it had, the consequence of which was 
a swinish squeal and a hurried waddle through the 
gateway. The contrast between the venerable dig- 
nity of this frowning old portal, with its historic sug- 
gestions and associations, and the little comedy of boy 
and pig enacted beneath it seemed to me one of the 
absurdest sights that I had ever seen. 

I walked out the next morning to Guy's Cliff, the 
seat of Lady Spencer, which is son:ie three miles from 
Warwick, the beauties of which I must pass over 
without particular mention. I will merely remark 
that in a little house, as small as house could be, in a 
little street on the very outmost edge of Warwick, I 
saw in the window a display of old blue china for 
sale. Who, I thought, would ever come here to buy ? 
But this is characteristic of the Englishman of to-day. 
He will set up his shop in such odd out-of-the-way 
places that an " American " would as soon think of 
opening a " store " in a light-house. 

On the road to Guy's Cliff, which was as trim and 
as well-kept as a road in Central Park, although it 
was only the ordinary highway, I found seats by the 
wayside at convenient intervals, — long, substantial 
benches under trees. Such provision for comfort 
of every kind is common all over England. And 
this morning I saw, although I forget exactly where, 



508 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

a monument erected on a wooded knoll on the spot 
where Sir Piers Gaveston was beheaded A. D. 1312, 
for the favor he enjoyed with Edward 11. , by the 
simple orders of the then Earl of Warwick. The 
possibility of having one's head taken off by a rich, 
powerful man was one of the comforts of old England 
which has passed entirely away. Then I turned back 
to Warwick, and walked rapidly to keep my appoint- 
ment for the visit to Stratford-on-Avon. 



CHAPTER XXII. 

A VISIT TO STRATFORD-ON-AVON. 

The desire to go on pilgrimage need not be very 
strong in any man of English blood to take him, if 
he is in England, to Stratford-on-Avon. My readers 
may remember that the elegant woman who, while I 
had the pleasure of being her railway companion, 
earnestly advised me to read " Kenilworth " also in- 
formed me, before she suspected my nationality, that 
all " Americans " go to Stratford. She meant, of 
course, all who go to England ; in which she was not 
quite right. To a great many of the " Americans " 
who do go to England (I am sorry to say to much 
the greater number of them} that country is a mere 
patch of the earth's surface over which they must pass 
to get to Paris. In London they do look in upon the 
Abbey or the Tower, and, if they are there in the sea- 
son, delight our minister by sending him demands for 
invitations to balls and for presentation at court ; but 
beyond this, and perhaps a visit to Brighton, their 
endeavor to make acquaintance with England rarely 
goes. But most of the " Americans " who do desire 
to know something more of England than may be 
learned by a railway journey from Liverpool to Lon- 
don and from London to Dover visit Stratford ; the 
proportion of these being very much larger, I am 
sure, than that of the cultivated Britons who render 
this personal homage to him whose works are our 
richest common inheritance. 



610 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

The reason of this is simply that the British Shake- 
speare lover, being always within about half a day's 
journey of Stratford, knows that he may go there at 
any time ; and as for that purpose one time is as good 
as another, he sometimes passes his life without going 
there at all. To my surprise, I found many intelli- 
gent and highly educated peoj)le in London who had 
never seen Canterbury Cathedral, although it is only 
about three hours from the metropolis. One of these 
had been in India and in " the States," and had seen 
them both not without advantage to others as well as 
to himself. But although he was a London man, he 
made his first visit to the great cathedral while I was 
in England, stimulated to do so, I believe, partly at 
least, by the example of his Yankee friend. This 
seeming indifference to the great things near at hand 
is not peculiar to the natives of any country. 

I decided to drive from Warwick to Stratford in- 
stead of going by rail. If I had been alone I should 
have walked ; for the places are only nine miles apart, 
and of all ways of going through a country one 
really wishes to see there is none like that provided 
by nature ; and this is especially true of England. 
The hostess of the " Warwick Arms " undertook to 
provide me with a fly, which in rural England is any 
vehicle that does the office of a cab, and which in 
this case proved to be a sort of modest one-horse 
phaeton. And, by the way, the cost of the use of this 
vehicle the greater part of a day was 13s. Be?., which, 
with two shillings to a careful, civil driver, who knew 
the country and all its noteworthy places well, is 
equal to about four dollars. Here I could not have 
had the same thing (if I could have had it at all) 
for less than seven dollars and a half, or more likely 
ten, with expectation of at least the same gratuity. 



A VISIT TO STRATFORD-ON-AVON. 511 

The scenery of Wai'wickshire is not striking ; it is 
not even picturesque, except as it has been made so 
by the hand of man. In the part which I saw there 
are no hills of sufficient height to give the landscape 
variety of form, either far or near. It is simply a 
gently rolling agricultural country. Tame as its nat- 
ural features are, however, it is made beautiful by 
cultivation, by parks, by meadows of vi^dd green, by 
clumps of trees, by old churches, old country-seats, 
and timber-and-plaster farm-houses and cottages. As 
we rolled gently along, almost every turn of the road 
bi-ought us in sight of some object of this kind, which 
often was beautiful, or, if not beautiful, interesting. 
My companion had stories to tell me of people who 
lived in these houses, many of whom were odd char- 
acters, or good. 

Erelong we came to Barford, which consisted chiefly 
of a church, quite new, a beautiful little Gothic build- 
ing, the architect of which was Gilbert Scott. It 
was built entirely at the expense of Miss Ryland, 
who is the Lady Bountiful of this neighborhood, and 
whose countr^^-seat we caught a glimpse of not far 
off. She gave the architect earte hlanche as to style 
and finish, and he produced one of the prettiest par- 
ish churches in general design and in detail to be 
found in all England. It ought to atone for some 
of his sins of restoration, by which many of his 
brother architects say, in a fraternal way not uncom- 
mon among the profession, that he has spoiled not 
a few of the finest old churches in England. We 
stopped and w^ent in ; but as service was far advanced 
did not go beyond the font, which stood close by the 
door, as is the general custom in England. But this 
font and the vestibule were so beautifully designed 



512 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

and so exquisitely wrought in richly-colored marbles 
that they alone were worth our visit. Barford church 
was one of several of its kind that I saw in England 
which were built by individuals at their own expense 
as a free gift to the parish. It is to be remarked, 
however, in regard to this munificence, that in many 
cases, if not in most, the givers own the whole par- 
ish ; and often it would seem they own not only the 
church, but the clergyman. 

On we went again, rolling easily over the smooth, 
firm road, almost as smooth and as firm as if it bad 
been paved with flags, and yet yielding to our horse's 
tread and the turn of our wheels with a sensation to 
us of ease such as comes either to pedestrian or eques- 
trian only from a surface of hard-packed earth. Pass- 
ing between a few more broad green meadows, we 
came to Charlecote church. The fence around it 
and the gate were homely and ragged to a degree 
that would not be tolerated for a week by New Eng- 
land people, if they had a fence and a gate at all for 
their church or meeting-house. But the church is a 
beautiful stone structure that combines simplicity, 
irregularity, stability, and an air of rural sanctity in 
a way that seems quite unattainable out of England. 
There was no service in this church that day, and our 
driver soon brought from a neighboring cottage the 
sexton's daughter with the key, and we entered. 

The chief object of our visit here was the tomb of 
Sir Thomas Lucy and his wife, which is in the chan- 
• cel end of the church. Most of my readers probably 
know that Sir Thomas was the squire of Charlecote 
House in Shakespeare's younger days, and that the 
poet is said by tradition to have been driven from 
Stratford by the persecution of the knight, who un- 



A VISIT TO STRATFOED-ON-AVON. 513 

dertook to punisli his humble neighbor severely for 
poaching on his manor, stealing deer from his park, 
and setting up lampoons upon his park gate. I 
doubt this. That Shakespeare poached is quite prob- 
able ; that he stole deer, at least from the Lucys' 
park, is very improbable, because they had no deer 
park then. But that there was some trouble between 
Sir Thomas and the young fellows of Stratford, of 
whom Shakespeare then was one, and nothing more, 
is very likely. Likely, too, that the young fellows 
had the worst of it, and that this particular one took 
his revenge, first by some verses which ridiculed the 
knight, and afterward, by a higher kind of ridicule in 
the first scene of the " Merry Wives of Windsor." 
For there can be no mistaking the hit at him in Jus- 
tice Shallow with the luces in his coat of arms, al- 
though the punning arms of the Lucy family have 
three, and not a " dozen," of those fish. But Sir 
Thomas was no Justice Shallow. He seems to have 
been an intelligent, kind-hearted gentleman, a man 
not likely to persecute any one, much less a clever, 
wild boy, the son of an alderman of Stratford. 

The effigies of the knight and his wife in alabaster 
lie in stately repose upon their tomb : he in armor, 
she in the full dress of a lady of the Elizabethan 
period. But above the tomb, on a marble recessed 
into the wall, is something far more interesting than 
these recumbent statues. It is the epitaph which Sir 
Thomas wrote upon his wife, who died five years 
before him. It tells the story of their life and of 
his love, and reveals the characters of both so well 
that I copied it. Here it is : — 

Here entombed lyeth the Lady Joyce Lucy, wife of Sir Thomas Lucy, 
of Charlecote, in the County of Warwicli, Knight, daughter and heir of 
33 



514 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

Thomas Acton, of Sutton, in the County of Worcester, Esquier, who de- 
parted out of this wretched world to her heavenly kingdome, the tenth 
day of February, in the 3'ear of our Lord God 1595, of her age LX and 
three. All the time of her life a true and f'aithfull servant af her good 
God, never detected in any crime or vice; in religion most sound; in love 
to her husband most faithful! and true ; in friendship most constant ; to 
what was in trust committed to her most secret; in wisdome excelling; 
in governing her house and bringing up of youth in the feare of God that 
did converse with her, most rare and singular. A great maintainer of hos- 
pitality; greatly esteemed of her betters; misliked of none unless of the 
envious. When all is spoken that can be said, a woman so furnished and 
garnished with virtue as not to be bettered, and hardly to be excelled by 
any. As she lived most virtuously, so she d3'ed most godly. Set down 
by him that best did know what hath been written to be true. 

Thomas Lucy. 

Such a tribute to sucli a woman came from no pom- 
pous, shallow-pated rustic squire. Nor was the heart 
that prompted a man to write that last sentence one 
that would take delight in persecuting a lad of eight- 
een or twenty for trespassing, at the cost of a few 
hares, or birds, or even deer. There was a truly 
kindly nature, we may almost say a noble soul. I am 
with Sir Thomas in this matter.; and if Shakespeare 
suffered any discipline at his hands, I believe that he 
deserved it. It does not at all follow because he wrote 
" Hamlet " and " King Lear " in his mature years 
that he might not have been a scapegrace in his 
youth ; and we who have read " Hamlet " and " King 
Lear " regard their author from a very different point 
of view from that taken by a country gentleman who 
had suffered annoyance at his hands. From Will- 
iam Shakespeare to Sir Thomas Lucy the descent 
is now tremendous and precipitous ; from William 
Shakespeare to Sir Thomas Lucy the ascent was then 
almost as great. This I had thought of before ; but 
when I came to see Charlecote on the one hand, and 
on the other the house in which Shakespeare passed 
his boyhood and that from which he took his wife, it 



A VISIT TO STRATFORD-ON-AVON. 515 

came upon me again witli a very strong impression. 
People are apt to think of Sir Thomas hardly, as a 
man who oppressed a great poet in his early years. 
But Shakespeare was then not a great poet : and un- 
less he had been driven from Stratford by a compli- 
cation of troubles, of which, mayhap, the squire's 
wrath was a part, he might never have become one. 

Whether the Lucys had deer in Shakespeare's 
time or not, they have them now by hundreds. As 
we skirted the park, the wooden fence of which is 
very rude and irregular in appearance, not unlike 
those that are made here of intertwisted roots and 
gnarled branches of trees, we saw herds of these 
beautiful creatures, who hardly turned their heads to 
look at us. Two or three stags did start up, and, 
tossing their antlers back upon their haunches, trot 
gently off, and then wheel round at gaze with dis- 
tended nostrils and brightened eyes. But even this 
seemed rather like a little game of playing sentinel 
in the eyes of the she-creatures, to relieve the tedium 
of a dull Sunday moiming ; and the does lay still and 
chewed the cud. The deer in the English parks 
have become so tame with the rest of nature there, 
the inhabited as well as the inhabitants, that they 
accept the presence of man as a matter of course, and 
regard him as, like themselves, a part of the great 
and beautiful whole. 

Charlecote park gate is a lofty stone structure, 
which seems strangely incongruous with the ragged 
wooden fence that stretches away from it on either 
side ; but the incongruity is not uncommon in Eng- 
land. The house itself is noble, quite one's ideal of 
the stately residence of wealthy gentlemen of Eliza- 
beth's time, and the grounds and gardens are beauti- 



516 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

fully laid out in a somewhat formal manner. There 
is nothing very grand or at all baronial about the 
place ; but to an eye accustomed only to the country 
houses of " America " it seems, compared with the 
largest and best of them, almost a palace. It has 
withal that thoroughly domestic, home-like look which 
is characteristic of the Englishman's dwelling, unless 
he is a duke ; and even then he is apt to live very 
little in his Chatsworth, but to pass his really happy 
days in some less pretentious house, reserving his 
palace and its expenses for great occasions. 

We did not enter Charlecote House. For I had 
heard that Mr. Lucy, its present owner, did not like 
to make a show of it ; and although I was told that I 
might obtain a reception there, and how to do so, I 
preferred to respect what some people would call his 
Avhim, and others his surliness, but which seems to me 
merely a reasonable desire of privacy. If a man has 
anything beautiful or interesting in his possession, to 
share its enjoyment with his friends is gracious in 
him and wise, and, I should think, pleasant too. But 
many people in such a case speak and act as if stran- 
gers had a right to demand the pleasure from him, or 
at least as if a refusal indicated a selfish and disoblig- 
ing disposition. It may do so, but in many cases it 
does not ; and among them are those in which the 
object of interest is a man's own home. Nor does it 
appear very clear how the fact that in times long past 
some person about whom your forefather cared very 
little, and about whom, if you had been in your fore- 
father's place, you would have cared very little your- 
self, was killed, or killed some one else, or was brought 
up for discipline in your house, should give people in 
general a right to expect that you would like to see 



A VISIT TO STRATFORD-ON-AVON. 517 

them prowling about your habitation or coming into 
it. Why should Mr. Lucy be willing to have his home 
invaded by staring strangers at times suited to their 
convenience, merely because a wild lad, whose father 
was a decent yeoman, and who afterward proved to 
have the deepest insight of human nature and the 
most splendid style that is known to literature, is said 
by tradition to have worried and lampooned his ances- 
tor ? I cannot see why ; and as I had been credibly 
informed that he was not willing — although, Shake- 
speare or no Shakespeare, I should have been glad to 
see the inside of so fine and well preserved an old 
Tudor mansion — we turned away from Charlecote. 

The road over which we passed must have been 
often marked hj Shakespeare's footsteps in his boy- 
hood. The roadway itself, we may be sure, was not 
in such admirable condition. For although there had 
been no rain for some days, and a dry wind had 
blown, our horse's hoofs and our carriage wheels did 
not raise a particle of dust. Like this were all the 
country roads that I saw and walked in England, 
north, south, and midland. 

Erelong we trotted gently in to Stratford. At 
once a sense of disappointment fell upon me, which 
weighed upon me all the time I was in the place. If 
I had not been told that I was in Stratford, I should 
not have suspected my whereabouts. It was the 
newest-looking, rawest, most uninteresting place 
that I had seen since my foot first touched British 
soil. Within less than twenty-four hours after I had 
landed at Liverpool I was in Chester, a town where 
every street and almost every house was interesting ; 
and I had just come from Canterbury, from Cam- 
bridge, and from Oxford, and from rambles among 



518 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

villages in Essex, in Kent, and in Sussex ; and my 
expectations in regard to old English towns and vil- 
lages had perhaps been raised too high. But it was 
disheartening to come upon Stratford, about which I 
had read, so much, and the topography of which I had 
studied until I could have gone straight to every 
place I wished to see without a guide, and to find it 
more like a new " one-horse " town in " America," 
half made by a railway, than any place that I had 
seen in England. 

The truth is that the Stratford that I knew was 
Shakespeare's Stratford ; and that has passed away. 
Well for Stratford folk it surely is that it has gone 
never to return. For in Shakespeare's Stratford his 
own father, although alderman, was fined " quia 
sterquinarium fecit " in front of his house in Henley 
Street, as others, his fellow aldermen, also did ; and 
sterquinaria are things not seemly to the eye, or 
pleasant to the nose, nor wholesome withal. But 
it was not well for me. With the march of improve- 
ment the glory had departed. I should not have 
insisted upon the sterquinaria; I should have been 
well content with old Stratford cleaned and mundi- 
fied, swept and garnished. But I had looked for- 
ward to seeing old Stratford. I had supposed that 
this small, insignificant place, out of the line of 
travel in the rural heart of England, would be the 
least changed of any place upon the island. But I 
was to be disappointed. There could not be a clean 
Stratford, it seems, without having a new one. I 
had looked for a country road, and lanes dignified 
with the name of streets ; for old timber-and-plaster 
liouses with peaked gables ; for cottages, and trees, 
and a village green ; for inn and ale house with swing- 



A VISIT TO STRATFORD-ON-AVON. 519 

ing sign ; for humble rustics and comfortable rural 
gentlefolk; for a place which, if it had no beauty 
(and I expected none), had about it an air of the 
antique time and of simple country life. I found 
wide streets, paved, with curb-stones, — and these 
curbs were a special eyesore to me, — and houses that 
looked not unlike those in our older market towns. 
No village green was there, no common, such as we 
have in old New England villages ; but there was a 
town hall of startling newness and much pretense. 
It was a handsome building enough ; but it offended 
me by being there at all. And even worse than 
these absences and these presences was a smug busi- 
ness look, an air of money-making that would have 
delighted Shakespeare, but which offended me. I 
felt wronged and robbed by this thrift}", airy, clean, 
hard, progressive-looking place. The truth is that 
in the stead of old Stratford there is now a success- 
ful place of business. It has been found that the 
Avon water makes superior beer, and a great brewery 
has been set up thei^e, which has enriched, and trans- 
mogrified, and ruined the home of Shakespeare. 

We drove to the Falcon inn, and dismissed our fly ; 
but to our surprise we were told we could not have 
rooms ; the house was full. I did not care about 
the rooms ; but it was annoying to find at Stratford 
an inn so full that two chance-coming wayfarers 
could not be taken in. There was comfort, however, 
in the fact that Mrs. Ford was hostess. It was Mrs. 
Ford or Mrs. Page, I forget which, and it makes no 
matter ; she was one of the Merry Wives, and that 
at least was something. After a pleasant chat with 
this representative of Falstaff's deluder, who bewailed 
her inability to receive us, we went to the Shake- 



520 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

speare Arms. In this house the rooms are not num- 
bered ; but with an affectation, perhaps pardonable, 
but to me not agreeable, they are called after the 
names of Shakespeare's plays. I was lodged in "A 
Midsummer Night's Dream," the name of which had 
no influence upon my slumbers, and which would bet- 
ter have suited my feeling of disappointment if it had 
been " Love's Labor's Lost " or " Much Ado about 
Nothing." Here, too, I was haunted by modern prog- 
ress ; for my bedstead was of iron ; my bed was a 
spring mattress ; and, worst of all, my room was lit 
with gas. Had I gone through England, living in 
Liverpool and Birmingham and London hotels, and 
in London lodgings, visiting gentle and simple, to 
sleep everywhere else in mahogany four-posters or in 
carved canopied bedsteads, and upon soft j^'et firm 
old-fashioned beds, which make going to bed a more 
delightful proceeding in England than I ever found 
it elsewhere ; had I delighted in the darkness visible 
which is revealed by one candle, except when I lit my 
"dressing candles" (as two extra articles of that 
kind are called), to come to Stratford-on-Avon, of all 
places, to sleep upon an iron bedstead and a spring 
mattress, after undressing in a room that was a blaze 
of light until I turned off the gas ! It was my first 
misfortune of the kind, and it was my last. I turned 
to find the stationary washstand and the Croton fau- 
cets, with hot water and cold, but this only possible 
aggravation of my hard lot, except a bath-room with 
gas in it, I was spared. 

We first visited the church where Shakespeare was 
baptized and buried, of which two facts, almost the 
only precisely ascertained and well-authenticated 
events of his life, I read the contemporary record in 



A VISIT_ TO STRATFORD-ON-AVON. 521 

the old parish register, a parchment folio that looks 
outside as if it were one of John a Combe's account 
books. I stood over Shakespeare's grave and before 
his monument ; but even my moderate expectations 
of interest were not fulfilled. I was no more im- 
pressed than if I were looking at the monument of 
some departed Knickerbocker in the church of St. 
Mark's in the Bowery. The monument is ugly ; the 
staring, painted, figure-head-like bust hideous ; and 
the famous curse engraven upon the tombstone did 
not interest me nearly so much when I saw it on the 
stone as when I had mused upon it in imagination. 

One cause of all this disappointment was the 
church itself, which is a fine building, but which 
I found lacking in all those rich and sombre ef- 
fects which had charmed me in other old English 
churches. Its exterior is pleasing enough in form ; 
but it is nearly white, and it looks strangely new. 
Inside it almost glares with unmellowed light. And, 
to cap the climax of Stratford newness, in this really 
venerable Gothic structure, galleries had been put up. 
Gas and galleries in Stratford ! They go well to- 
gether. From the moment I saw them Stratford 
seemed all gas and galleries. And seriously the in- 
troduction of these galleries has destroyed all the 
venerable and ecclesiastical air which the building 
might otherwise have had. Even this old church 
had been made to look like some imitation Gothic 
thing put up on contract yesterday by a firm of car- 
penters and builders. 

There, in a corner, is the tomb of Shakespeare's 
friend, John a Combe, who lent money on usury, but 
who seems nevertheless to have been a good, respect- 
able man. The squibbish epigram upon his death, 



622 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

ending, " Ho, ho, quotli the devil, 't is my John a 
Combe," is an adaptation of one that had been writ- 
ten upon some other money-lender before him, and 
as applied to him is very likely a forgery. But 
the point of it, I find, is lost upon many persons 
who do not see the pun, which is made possible by 
rustic pronunciation. The devil is supposed to say, 
" 'T is my John has come" — ha' come — a-Combe, 
Wandering among the graves in the church-yard, I 
found and copied these verses, graven by way of epi- 
taph upon a Mrs. Mary Hands, who died A. D. 1699. 
The spelling is delightful, and must satisfy the high- 
est aspirations of the most ardent advocate of pho- 
netic spelling reform : — 

'' Death creeps Abought on hard 
And steels Abroad on seen 
Hur darts are Sliding and her arous keen 
Her stroks are dedh' com they soon or late 
When being strook Repentance comes too late 
Deth is a minute ful of suden sorrow 
Then live to day as tho.ii mightst die to morow.'' 

At once, of course, the. line in the "Elegy in a 
Country Churchyard" came to mind, "And teach 
the rustic moralist to die." There could not be a 
better example or illustration of the occasion of 
Gray's poem, which will ever seem as fresh, and as 
green, as the turf in an English church-yard, which 
in turn seems as carefully and finely finished as the 
elegy. 

I could not associate Shakespeare at all with this 
new-looking, bright, staring church in this new-look- 
ing, bright, staring town ;-but I hoped for the better 
on Monday, when I expected to see the house in Hen- 
ley Stieet, — the birthplace, as it is called ; but there 
is no certainty as to the place where Shakespeaxe 



A VISIT TO STRATFORD-ON-AVON. 523 

first opened his eyes u|)on the world that he was to 
underst'and so well and so to fill with 2;reat delig-ht. 
The house is not open to visitors on Sunday ; and 
we therefore strolled down to the banks of the river, 
from which we were promised some fine eels to our 
dinner. For the Avon, it seems, is famous for the 
fatness and fine flavor of its eels. And here, in truth, 
I found this famous stream better suited for the pro- 
duction of eels than for anything else. In Warwick 
Park it is beautiful, and as it flows along past Charle- 
cote and by the roadside it is at least a pretty little 
stream; but here in Stratford it becomes sluggish 
and sedgy, and is little more than a big ditch. It 
looks like those little creeks that put up fi-om the 
sea or the bay into the salt meadows on Long Island 
or New Jersey, and is as devoid as they are of stim- 
ulus to poetic inspiration. Any self-respecting boy- 
angler in fresh water for perch or pickerel would be 
sure to shun such a place as an eel-hole. And after 
all we did not even get our eels. When we returned 
to dinner, our hostess came wringing her hands like 
Launcelot Gobbo's cat, and saying that, to her sor- 
row, of eels she found there were to be had none. 
They were all taken up to supply the people that 
filled the other hotel. They must not only have our 
rooms but our eels. Thus it ever is : did not Rachel 
have both the love of Leah's husband and her son's 
mandrakes also? But we did have a delightful sea- 
coal fire, and a chat by it that lasted far into the 
night. 

The next morning we went to the site of " New 
Place," which is hard by. What pleasure any lover 
of Shakespeare can receive by going there I cannot 
imagine. And this simply because there is notlung 



524 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

there for tlie lover of Shakespeare to see. On the cor- 
ner of a harcl-pavecl street, within a grassy inclosure 
looking wonderfully like " a vacant lot up town," are 
two or three small trenches, over which is laid wire 
netting. At the bottom of these trenches are a few 
stones, which were a part of the foundation of Shake- 
speare's house. That is all. I must confess that 
they were of no more interest to me than so many 
other stones. The connection between them and 
"King Lear," or its writer, was to me altogether 
imperceptible. But as I stood there and looked off 
upon the strong square tower of the Guild Chapel on 
the opposite corner, I thought all at once that Shake- 
speare had often stood there looking at it, just as I 
did, — no, not as I looked, but with his way of look- 
ing ; and then from the air around the old gray tower 
came down upon me the only dreamy charm that I 
knew in Stratford of fancied nearness to him I had 
come to worship. 

The mayor of Stratford, ail intelligent gentleman 
of pleasant manners, was polite enough to show me 
some of the notable things of the town where he is 
John Shakespeare's successor ; and he took me to 
see a portrait of Garrick by Gainsborough. He told 
me that, unfortunately, it was out of its frame and 
laid by at present in a private house ; but I was too 
eager to see a portrait of such a man by such a painter 
to permit those drawbacks to restrain me. His honor 
took us to a very respectable-looking old brick house 
hard by, and we were taken by a very respectable- 
looking old man, in perfect keeping with his dwell- 
ing, up into a large low bed-chamber which had not 
yet been " readied up " ^ after the night's and early 

2 Properly, redd up. 



A VISIT TO STRATFORD-ON-AVON. 525 

morning's use ; to my gratification, for I prized these 
opportunities of "seeing Mr. and Mrs. John Bull in 
dSshabille, and of them I chanced to have many. 
There was the picture, a full length, ujDon a large 
canvas. It was leaning against the wall, not upright, 
but lengthways, in a somewhat helpless fashion ; for 
it was too tall to stand up in the room ; where it 
brought to mind the picture of the Vicar of Wake- 
j&eld's family. To see it I was obliged to invert 
myself somewhat into the position of standing on my 
head. But it repaid me for the contortion. There 
must have been a great store of outbreaking vitality 
in that little man ; for every portrait of him shows 
it, not only in the eyes, but in the mouth, and in the 
whole carriage of the body ; and if anything can di- 
minish the expression of this trait of character it is 
sitting for one's portrait. Gainsborough's is rather 
more placid and serene in expression than any other 
that I have seen, but the nervous energy is there ; 
and its slight suppression I suspect that we owe to 
looking through Gainsborough's eyes. For no por- 
trait painter can present a man as he really is, but 
only as he sees him. 

From here we went to the house in Henley Street, 
in which, if Shakespeare was not born, he passed his 
boyhood during the years of his father's prosperity. 
In going thither we passed through Rother Street. 
Its name, which it had in Shakespeare's day, shows 
that it was a place, or the way to a place, where cattle 
were sold, — the rother market, as it was long called ; 
rother meaning neat cattle. Might not the tradition 
that Shakespeare's father was a butcher have had its 
origin in the mere fact that his house was so near 
this market ? Or was he indeed a butcher, who made 



526 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

liis liom6 near the place where he bought his stock 
in trade ? Of all that I saw connected with his mem- 
ory this house was the most disappointing ; and more, 
it was sad, depressing. The house has been recently 
" restored," and so destroyed. Its outside has an air 
of newness that is jDositively offensive. It looks like 
a small railway station which some architect, equally 
ambitious and ignorant, has chosen to design in the 
old style. All expression of rural antiquity has been 
scraped, and p^ainted, and roofed, and clapboarded 
out of it. Were Shakespeare to see it now he might 
well say, — 

" This is no my ain house; 
I ken by the bigging o' it." 

How much better to have left it as it stood twenty- 
five years ago, merely removing the more modern 
buildings which had been ei-ected on either side of 
it! 

Within, however, not much of this smoothing over 
has been done ; nor was it possible without destroy- 
ing all the original features of the house. My heart 
sank within me as I looked around upon the rude, 
mean dwelling-place of him who had filled the world 
with the splendor of his imaginings. It is called a 
house, and any building intended for a dwelling- 
place is a house ; but the interior of this one is hardly 
that of a rustic cottage ; it is almost that of a hovel, 
— poverty-stricken, squalid, kennel-like. A house 
so cheerless and comfortless I had not seen in rural 
England. The poorest, meanest farm-house that I 
had ever entered in New England or on Long Island 
was a more cheerful habitation. And amid these 
sordid surroundings William Shakespeare grew to 
early manhood ! I thought of stately Charlecote, the 



A VISIT TO STEATFORD-ON-AVON. 527 

home of the Lucys, who were but simple country 
gentlemen ; and then for the first time I knew and 
felt from how low a condition of life Shakespeare 
had arisen. For his family were not reduced to this ; 
they had risen to it. This was John Shakespeai-e's 
home in the days of his brief prosperity ; and when I 
compared it with my memory of Charlecote I knew 
that Shakespeare himself must ha,ve felt what a sham 
was the pretension of gentry set up for his father 
when the coat of arms was asked and obtained by the 
actor's money from the Heralds' College, — that coat 
of arms which Shakespeare prized because it made 
him " a gentleman " by birth. This it was, even 
more than the squalid appearance of the place, that 
saddened me. For I felt that Shakespeare himself 
must have known how well founded was the protest 
of the gentlemen who complained that Clarencieux 
had made the man who lived in that house a gentle- 
man of coat armor. But what an unspeakable gain 
to the world was the lowly birth which the son felt 
so grievously, and which he sought so artfully to con- 
ceal ! If Shakespeare had been born at Charlecote, 
he would probably have had a seat in Parliament, 
not improbably a peerage ; but we should have had 
no plays, — only a few formal poems and sonnets, 
most likely, and possibly some essays, with all of 
Bacon's wisdom set forth in a style more splendid 
than Bacon's, but hardly so incisive. 

The upper part of the house, to which you climb 
by a little rude stairway that is hardly good enough 
for a decent stable, has been turned into a museum 
of doubtful relics and gimcracks, and is made as un- 
like as possible what it must have been when Shake- 
speare lived there. There is a book-case containing 



628 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

the principal editions of liis works ; but I was not to 
be placated by seeing that my own was honored by 
a place among them. Another smaller case is filled 
with bound volumes of manuscript notes by Mr. Hal- 
liwell-Phillips, which were presented by that devoted 
Shakespeare enthusiast. The case is locked, and it 
is to remain so, and the books are not to be opened 
during his life. There is a portrait of Shakespeare, 
of which much is made. I had heard a great deal of 
it, and knew it by photographs. On examining it 
closely, which I was kindly allowed to do, I came 
to the conclusion that it is a modern performance, 
painted from the bust and the Droeshout engraving 
on the title-page of the folio of 1623. There is very 
little in this museum that is worth attention ; but 
there is one object of some interest. It is a letter 
written to Shakespeare by Richard Quiney, of Strat- 
ford, asking a loan of money. This scrap of paper 
has the distinction of being the only existing thing, 
except his will, that we know must have been in 
Shakespeai-e's hands. For, as to the Florio Mon- 
taigne in the Britisli Museum, notwithstanding the 
opinion of Sir Frederick Madden, others whose judg- 
ment on such a point is worth mine ten times over, 
think, as I do, that it is a forgery. 

I turned away from the house in Henley Street 
with a sense of disappointment that was almost sick- 
ening, and went to drink a glass of Stratford ale in 
the parlor of the Red-Horse inn, which is associated 
with the name of Washington Irving. It is a cosy 
little hostelry; and it was pleasant to see evidences 
in it of the honor paid to the memory of " Geoff ry 
Crayon." 

To Anne Hathaway's cottage at Shottery I went, 



A VISIT TO STRATFORD-ON-AVON. 529 

taking, the path through the fields which Shakespeare 
took too often for his happiness. There is little to 
be said about this house, which is merely a thatched 
cottage of the same grade as the house in Henley 
Street ; — in its original condition, a picturesque ob- 
ject in a landscape, but the lowliest sort of human 
habitation. I sat upon the settle by the great fire- 
place, where the wonderful boy of eighteen was en- 
snared by the woman of twenty-six. And while I 
talked of other things I thought — I could not help 
but think — of the toil, the wretchedness, the per- 
plexity, and the shame that were born to him be- 
neath that roof. I was given water to drink from the 
well in the garden, and flowers, to take away as me- 
mentoes. I was tempted to spue the water out upon 
the ground ; and the flowers, if they can be found, 
any one may have who wants them. 

Thus ended my visit to Stratford-on-Avon, where I 
advise no one to go who would preserve any elevated 
idea connected with Shakespeare's personality. There 
is little there to interest and much to. dishearten a 
"passionate pilgrim " to the scenes of the early and 
the later life of him who is the great glory of our 
literature. I have heard of a gorgeously, and won- 
derfully arrayed Western dame who said, in the pres- 
ence of some friends of mine, to the rector of Strat- 
ford church, who was showing her attention, that 
" she had ben a gooddle around, an' seen a good 
many places ; but, for her part, for a place to live in, 
she had seen nawthin like Louyville, in Kaintucky." 
I did not so reward the kind attention of my hosts ; 
and as to "Louyville," my knowledge of it is con- 
fined to that derived from this elegant and opportune 
eulogy. But nevertheless it was with a sense of 

34 



530 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

mingled gloom, and wrong of rightfal expectation, 
that I turned my back upon Stratford-on-Avon. As 
I drove out of the town, on my way to Kenil worth, 
the first object that caught my eye was an overloaded 
rickety wagon feebly drawn by a still more rickety 
horse, by the side of which tramped a man whom I 
at once recognized as the hero of the Dutch auction 
at the Warwick fair ; the last was a large sign over 
a little shop : — 

William Shakespeare, Shoemaker. 

A fitting close, I thought, of my pilgrimage. It 
would have annoyed the " gentleman born " much 
more than it annoyed me ; and for quite another 
reason. The only place in England which he who is 
sometimes honored with the name of Shakespeare's 
Scholar regrets having visited is that where Shake- 
speare was born and buried. 



CHAPTER XXIII. 

IN LONDON AGAIN. 

Returning to London, after wandering in the 
shires, seemed to me like getting home again. A 
strange feeling this, it may be said, in one who had 
lived in the great town only a few weeks, and who 
had never been in England before. And so, indeed, 
it seemed to me, at first. But, notwithstanding the 
vastness of London, it impressed me greatly, and I 
do not know but chiefly, as a collection of homes. 
It has little beauty ; much of it is dull and dingy ; 
more is commonplace, although it may be neither 
dull nor dingy. There is very little of it that poses 
itself before you architecturally and asks for admira- 
tion. But the whole of it, outside of " the city " 
proper, from Belgravia to Bethnal Green, has this 
home-like look. The very shops in Regent Street 
and New Bond Street and Oxford Street are more 
expressive of the sense of human habitation than of 
that of trade and traffic. In part this is due to the 
comparative lack of display and of staring sign-boards, 
and the absence of street railways, in which respects 
the contrast to New York, and to " American " towns 
which imitate New York, is very marked. But it 
seemed to me that this home-like homeliness of Lon- 
don (the strange freaks of language make this quali- 
fication and distinction possible and apprehensible) 
was caused by its gradual growth, and by the perma- 



532 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

nence of its not very substantially built houses. Few 
indeed of these are ancient, or even at all venerable 
for their age, but a very large proportion of them are 
old-fashioned. And, as man modifies even the face 
of nature, all the more has his presence among his 
own creations and his constant use of them left upon 
them the impression of his humanity. Even a man's 
coat and hat, if he wears them long enough, receive 
the impress of his individuality. Do we not recog- 
nize certain integuments, even upon hall tables and 
hat-trees ? Thus generations of Englishmen have left 
their mark upon the houses of London, which bear 
upon their outsides the character of their inmates. 
The brain has given form and expression to the dome 
which is its workshop and dwelling-place. 

There are nevertheless parts of London which are 
not without a likeness to some parts of New York 
and to some parts of Philadelphia, and a stronger 
likeness to certain parts of Boston. Edgeware Road 
and much of Oxford Street are very like the Sixth 
Avenue and the Third Avenue in New York. Give 
the houses in Edgeware Road, instead of their tawny, 
dingy outsides, walls of bright red brick, put a street 
railway in it, and a New Yorker carried to it on 
Aladdin's carpet might easily believe that he was in 
some part of Sixth Avenue with which he was not 
familiar. At least, so 1 thought ; but, alas, this was 
before Sixth Avenue was traversed from end to end 
in mid-air by that monstrous contrivance for the con- 
fiscation of the property of many people for the con- 
venience, or rather the pleasure and the profit, of some 
others, — the Elevated Railway. This abomination, 
in addition to the other injuries which it inflicts, gives 
to the many miles of New York streets through which 



IN LONDON AGAIN. 533 

it runs, darkening and deforming them, a hideous un- 
likeness to the public highways in any other town in 
the world. 

Some parts of Oxford Street also have the same 
sort of likeness to the second and third rate streets 
of New York before the imposition of the elevated 
railways. There is the same mingling of dwelling- 
house and shop ; a like inferior style of building ; a 
display in the shop windows somewhat like that which 
is made in our shop-lined avenues, and quite unlike 
the modest reserve which prevails in Regent Street, 
St. James's, New Bond Street, and Piccadilly. The 
resemblance which I have pointed out is greatly 
helped by the fact that Edgeware Road and the up- 
per part of Oxford Street are nearly straight, — the 
straightest sti-eets.of any length that I saw in Lon- 
don, where the great thoroughfares, as well as the 
small, wind this way and that in the easiest and most 
natural manner possible. Only in Boston and in the 
very oldest part of New York have we anything like 
this natural irregularity. 

In London, and in most other towns in England, 
streets are passage-ways between houses ; and the line 
of the street was originally determined by the posi- 
tion of the houses, and still remains so in a great 
measure. With us a street is regarded, or at least 
seems to be regarded, merely as the directest possible 
passage-way from one point to another, along which 
houses have been allowed to be built. In the one 
case, an idea of stability has governed ; in the other, 
an idea of movement. 

There is, however, in this no indication of a differ- 
ence of character between the people who built Lon- 
don and those who built New York and Philadelphia. 



534 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

The unlikeness is produced simply by the fact that 
the newer and larger parts of the latter places were 
laid out, projected, and that the whole of the former 
slowly grew. When London was to be rebuilt, after 
the great fire (1666), in the plan proposed by a very 
eminent Englishman, Sir Christopher Wren, and 
approved by many other eminent Englishmen, in- 
cluding the king, the streets were all as straight as 
they could be drawn by rule ; and the adoption of 
this plan was defeated only by the difficulty of set- 
tling the question of property in the land. The con- 
sequence was that the houses were rebuilt upon the 
old plots of land ; the final result being the reten- 
tion of the old irregularity of the streets. 

Oxford Street, which I have mentioned, is a very 
characteristic example of another peculia.rity of Lon- 
don streets. It is the longest, broadest, and in a 
certain sense the most important thoroughfare in 
London. The road begins just out of Cock Lane, a 
little street made famous by the Cock Lane Ghost. 
But here it is called Holborn, or at first Holborn 
Hill. It is, however, really the continuation of a 
great street, which runs very directly through Lon- 
don, from east to west, and which is called succes- 
sively, beginning at the east, Mile End, White- 
chapel Road, Aldgate High Street, Leadenhall Street, 
Cornhill, Cheapside, Newgate Street, Skinner Street, 
Holborn, Oxford Street. It is difficult to discover 
where these several divisions begin and end. There 
is no apparent cause for division. The road is con- 
tinuous. It is as if Broadway had half a dozen 
names between the Bowling Green and Thirty-Fourth 
Street. The difference is caused merely by the 
great London thoroughfare's retention of the names 



IN LONDON AGAIN. 535 

which its different parts received from time to time 
in past centuries ; while Broadway never had any 
name but that which it received at its starting-point.^ 
It has shot three or four miles into infinite space 
within the memory of living men. 

Although I found in London very much less of 
apparent antiquity than I had expected (and in- 
deed it was so in most other towns that I saw in 
England), its general unlikeness to towns in the 
United States is striking, and is very much greater 
at the present day than it reasonably should be. It 
should seem that if Brown, Jones, and Robinson, 
whether British subjects or citizens of the United 
States, were to build themselves houses, whether in 
one place or another, under like influences of climate 
and habits of life, the result on the whole would be 
very much alike. And indeed it once was so. The 
New York of fifty years ago was very much like what 
a great part of London is now. An examination 
of old street views in New York v^^ill justify this 
remark. The lower part of Broadway, Beekman 
Street, Pearl Street, Greenwich Street, and the cross- 
streets below Canal Street, were then filled with 
houses which in form, in expression, and in everj- 
thing except color were just like thousands of houses 
that make up now the better part of London west of 
Charing Cross. In London these houses have been 
allowed to stand. In New York they have been 
taken down, to give place to others more profitable. 
The conditions of property in houses and land in the 

1 This is not exactly true. One hundred years ago, that little part of 
this great dividing thoroughfare which stretched beyond the site of the 
City Hall was called Great George Street. But it retained this name 
for so short a time that the assertion above is correct, to all intents and 
purposes. 



536 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

two countries are so different tliat tliey affect the 
plans of owners and the stability of brick walls. 
The only question here is, whether an increase of 
rent can be obtained by " tearing down " and re- 
building ; the result of which is that not only has 
the greater part of Wall Street been rebuilt twice 
within thirty years, but that beautiful and substantial 
houses in Fourteenth Street and on Union Square, 
and in other new parts of New York, not twenty-five 
years old, have been pulled down, within the last 
three or four years, with as little remorse as if they 
were so many old hen-coops. In England there is 
no such indifference to dilapidation. There they 
cannot afford it ; and indeed real property is so tied 
up there that houses cannot be shifted and scattered 
about as they are here. The consequence is a feel- 
ing of hesitation about destroying a house. In this 
there may be some inconvenience; but the general 
result is not altogether un admirable. 

Crosby Hall is a witness (although the example 
is an extreme one) of this unwillingness to destroy 
substantial old houses by way of improvement. The 
name of this building is known to all readers of 
Shakespeare's " Richard III." Richard, while Duke 
of Gloster, makes three appointments there. The 
house was built between 1466 and 1470 by Sir John 
Crosby/-, who was a grocer, an alderman, and a mem- 
ber of Parliament. It was therefore in the first gloss 
of its newness in Richard's time, and is now about 
four hundred and ten years old. I knew something 
of its beauty and its history, and it was one of the 
buildings in London that I was curious to see ; but 
the way in which I saw it was most unexpected, and 
in effect quite ludicrous. I took my luncheon there, 



IN LONDON AGAIN. 537 

one day, M'itli some dozen or score other chance feed- 
ers. This knightly residence is now a common eat- 
ing-house, chiefly frequented by commercial people. 
It is in Bishopsgate Street, not far from the Bank 
and the Exchange, and, like many other places of 
note in London and .in England, is quite withdrawn 
from general sight. It stands in a little court, and is 
hidden by houses and shops. As it is said to be the 
only remnant of the ancient domestic architecture of 
London, it is a building of peculiar interest. And 
certainly, if knightly grocers and aldermen customa- 
rily bad such houses for their dwelling-places, they 
were magnificently lodged. 

The hall, which was the principal room of the 
house, and served as dining, drawing, and dancing 
room, is some fifty or sixty feet in length, about 
thirty feet wide, and the ceiling, or rather roof, 
which is of oak, seems to be fifty feet high, but is, I 
believe, somewhat less. It is lighted from the upper 
part on both sides by arched windows, exceedingly 
beautiful, and of marked simplicity of design ; and 
there is an oriel window so charming to the eye in 
its proportions and its detail that it alone is worth 
a visit. Two or three other rooms remain, not quite 
so large, and not nearly so lofty, but in the same 
noble style. This building seems to have come 
into the possession of the crown about a hundred 
years after its erection, for it was used in Queen 
Elizabeth's time for the reception of ambassadors. 
Since then it has passed through many changes. At 
one time it was a dissenting chapel ; then it was used 
for public meetings, and for lectures and concerts. 
But for none of these was it very convenient, and, 
being useless, it was deserted. Nevertheless, it was not 



638 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

" torn down," as if it had been, for example, John 
Hancock's house, but was allowed to stand, and at last 
was made an eating-house ; and now hungry and 
thirsty trading Britons eat their chops and soles and 
drink their beer and port wine in the very hall 
where Plantagenet and Tudor monarchs held their 
state. 

Ignorant of this, I was with a commercial friend at 
the hour of the midday meal, and he proposed lunch- 
eon, adding, " Let 's go to Crosby Hall." I did not 
quite apprehend his meaning. It was much as if 
he had proposed to me to take luncheon with him in 
Stonehenge or John o'Groat's house. But we went, 
and although I enjoyed the beauty of the place I also 
enjoyed my luncheon ; and the only result of my 
long-expected yet chance visit to this centre of 
Shakespearean and historical association was a brief 
memorandum in my pocket-book, thus : " October 
20th. Luncheon with M. at Crosby Hall. Win- 
dows. Beautiful old marble fire-place, carved cor- 
ners, unlike, used as a sink. Twelve she-waiters, — 
all skinny." 

The last somewhat irreverent and ungallant remark 
records a fact worthy of special note. I have before 
remai'ked that among the many absurd notions which 
prevail about the people in the Old England and 
those in the New, not one is more unfounded and 
absurd than that which assigns fvill figures to the 
women of the former and spare figures to those of 
the latter. It seemed to me, on the contrary, that, 
although I saw more obese old women in England 
than I was quite accustomed to, I found there not- 
ably more slight figures, pinched features, and pale 
faces among the women who were between eighteen 



IN LONDON AGAIN. 639 

and thirty-five years old than I had ever seen be- 
fore ; and this my Ci'osby Hall observation confirmed. 
It is, however, probable that there is no excess on 
either side : it is not reasonable that there should be. 
Why, then, those malicious caricatures, to which I 
have referred before, drawn by the nearest neigh- 
bors of our British cousins, the French, who see 
m.uch more of them than we do, and who always 
represent the Englishwoman as " slab-sided " and 
bony, with limp, artificial side-curls, and projecting 
upper teeth ? 

On this same day I went to Guildhall, where For- 
tune favored me, as she often did in England. The 
building itself is a strange architectural medley. It 
was originally built in 1411 ; but almost all of it, 
except the walls and the crypt, was destroyed in the 
great fire of 1666, and the subsequent restorations 
and additions are poor in themselves and incongruous. 
The great hall, however, has the grandeur which, in 
architecture, is always given, in a certain degree, by 
size : it is one hundred and fifty feet long. The 
building has its name from the fact that it was 
erected by the united efforts of the various guilds of 
the city, — associations, or rather trading and social 
institutions, of which the very germ seems not to 
have crossed the ocean. We have nothing with 
which to compare them, or which will help to give 
an}' idea of them. Notwithstanding the changes that 
have taken place in society and in trade, they still 
exist as highly respectable and influential bodies ; 
and although their visible function seems to the out- 
side world limited chiefly to the performance of their 
annual dinners, — a heavy task, — they do much to 
preserve the civic dignity and trade stability of the 
British metropolis. 



540 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

Guildhall is the City Hall of London, and is a sort 
of state palace for tlie Lord Mayor ; iDut it is also a 
place of meeting for the citizens, which our city halls 
are not. Like them, however, it is surrounded with 
courts of a minor grade, and within it some higher 
courts sometimes sit. The great hall contains a few 
statues. Among them is one of William Pitt, and, 
if I remember rightly, one of Lord Chatham. They 
did not impress me as being of a high order of sculpt- 
ure. Two other statues, or effigies, raised on high, 
adorned the place, — those known as Gog and Ma- 
gog. I expected, of course, to see something gro- 
tesque in these famous figures ; but I was not prepared 
for quite such an exhibition of colossal puerility. 
These absurd monsters look like painted and gilded 
toys, made to please the boys of Brobdignag. Words 
can hardly express their gigantic childishness. Why 
they are retained in their present position, and how 
they ever came there, seem to be beyond conjecture. 
They have not even the glamour of antiquity upon 
them ; for they are, or the originals were, the pro- 
duction of the seventeenth century; and yet, with 
this recent origin, their history and purpose seem to 
be entirely lost. No one, not even the city antiqua- 
ries, can tell anything about them, except that these 
pi'esent figures were made in the last century to re- 
place others that were worn out by being carried in 
Lord Mayors' shows. They stand there, wonderful 
and ridiculous witnesses to the immobility of British 
Philistinism. 

There is an open space before the miserable front 
which Guildhall presents to the world, and this, as I 
approached it, was swarming with flocks of pigeons, 
which alternately swept down upon the ground and 



IN LONDON AGAIN. 541 

rose into the air. It was strange and pretty to see 
this multitude of gentle, winged creatures in the very- 
heart of London. They are not always visible, I 
was told; but like Gog and Magog they were an 
" institution." They brought at once to inind the 
flocks that Hilda watches from her tower window, in 
Hawthorne's Roman romance. But not only the 
pigeons favored me. There was a little crowd be- 
fore the hall, and some commotion : the reason of 
which proved to be that on that day the Lord Mayor 
visited the place officially. He was just coming out, 
and I saw him ascend his great, yellow, gilded coach, 
in which was a man wearing an enormous fur cap, 
which made him look like that domestic instrument 
whilom used for washing windows, called a pope's- 
head. A huge straight sword was thrust out of one 
of the windows of the carriage. The coach started, 
and a tall footman in a gorgeous light blue livery 
sprang after it, and, mounting_ it as it moved, took 
his place beside another being of like splendor, and 
his " lordship " was driven off. It seemed to me 
that a man of any sense would be very glad to get 
out of such a vehicular gimcrack as that, and to rid 
himself of such a preposterous companion as the. man 
with the pope's-head. I wondered how they could 
sit in the coach and look at each other without laugh- 
ing. Nothing could be more out of place, more in- 
congruous, than this childish masquerading seemed 
to be with English common sense, and with the so- 
briety and true dignity befitting such an official per- 
son as the mayor of the city of London. But I was 
told that the people of London rather insist upon 
this puerile pageantry ; and that the attempt of some 
previous Lord Mayors to mitigate the monstrosity of 



542 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

the " Lord Mayor's show " (although it is of very- 
modern origin) was received with disfavor, and had 
sensibly diminished their popularity. 

The number of statues and of monuments of which 
statues form a part is great in London. It could 
hardly be otherwise in the capital of a country with 
such a history as England's. Although few of these 
command much admiration as works of art, I found 
most of them interesting, not only on account of their 
associations, but as witnesses to the grateful memory 
in which the English people hold those who have 
served the country successfully, or only faithfully. 
Westward of Charing Cross one can hardly walk a 
quarter of a mile without seeing a monumental statue. 
Nor are only great statesmen and captains thus hon- 
ored. It was a pleasing sight to see in St. James's 
Street a monument to the private soldiers who fell in 
the Crimean war. It has three typical figures of 
private soldiers in the uniforms of various arms of 
the service. And there is a monument to the West- 
minster scholars w^ho fell in the same war, which is 
now generally admitted to have been a gigantic Brit- 
ish blunder. But, right or wrong, Britannia never 
forgets those who faithfully do her bidding. 

Two statues in South Kensington impressed me 
strongly. They are very unlike. One is that of a 
man of mature years, seated. He wears a robe, and 
on his head a kind of bonnet, something like the cap 
of a Doge of Venice. I was struck by the strength 
and the sagacity of the face, and perhaps even more 
by a certain expression, which, notwithstanding its 
unmistakable Oriental character, awoke in me a feel- 
ing of kindred quite unlike that with which I ever 
looked into any Hebrew or other Semitic face, either 



IN LONDON AGAIN. 543 

in life or in art, not to say any face of Mongol or other 
Turanian race. I did not know who it was, nor did 
I know that there was in London a statue of Sir Jam- 
setjee Jeejeebhoy ; and yet as I drew near I felt that 
it must be he, as I soon found that it was, by the in- 
scription. I had learned, from friends who had 
known the great Parsee merchant in India, to honor 
him for his sagacity, for his public spirit, and for a 
large and sweet benevolence which we, in our relig- 
ious arrogance, would have Christian. But in true 
philanthropy few Christians have equaled, and none 
known to me have ever surpassed, this fire-worshiper. 
The pleasure with which I looked upon his face was 
enhanced by the intuitive recognition in its linea- 
ments, before I knew whose they were, of an inex- 
pressible something that told of his Aryan origin. 
And yet this may possibly have been given to him 
by the English sculptor. The imparting of such sub- 
tle traits is an unconscious process, which takes place 
even beyond the bounds of legitimate art. I remem- 
ber seeing the colored photograph of a young New 
York lady which was taken in Switzerland, to which 
the Teutonic manipulator had managed to impart, it 
was impossible to say how or wherein, a German look 
that was quite ludicrous. 

The other statue was the Eagle Slayer, which I 
thought worthy of a reputation which, so far as I 
know, it has not attained. It represents a young- 
man who has just launched from his bow an arrow 
at the soaring bird. The lithe and supple figure — 
a fine embodiment of the forms of youthful manly 
beauty — seems as if it were bounding into the air 
with eagerness. The archer has shot not only his 
shaft, but his whole soul into the air. He wings his 



544 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

arrow with his breath ; and yet there is that quiet- 
ness about it, that instantaneous arrest of movement, 
which is one characteristic trait of the highest type 
of Greek sculpture. I saw no modern statue in Eng- 
land quite equal to this one, of which I had never 
heard. And yet I should speak of it with some re- 
serve, for I saw it but once. 

Of all the statues and monuments that I saw in 
London, the most ambitious was that which pleased 
me least. I mean the Albert monument in Hyde 
Park. Its first suggestion is the unfortunate ques- 
tion, Why should such a monument have been erected 
to such a man ? Prince Albert was an honorable, 
prudent, kind-hearted, and accomplished gentleman. 
As princes go, he was certainly a very superior per- 
son ; so that we can forgive his being just the least 
bit priggish, as his biography by Mr. Theodore Mar- 
tin reveals him to us. But the biography and the 
monument both seem to be quite out of proportion 
to the merits of their subject. If the Prince had 
united the genius of Napoleon to the virtues of Wash- 
ington, there might, with more show of reason, have 
been such a literary and such a sculptured monument 
raised to him so soon after the close of his blameless 
and useful life. But even then something more sim- 
ple and sober would have been more fitting than 
this gilded, enthroned, enshrined, and canopied effigy 
of the demi-god of commonplace. In fact, this is 
the most obtrusively offensive monument in London. 
The Wellington statue on Hyde Park corner is ridic- 
ulous, but the Albert monument is ostentatiously 
vulgar. 

At St. Saviour's church I was more impressed than 
anywhere else in London by the bringing together of 



IN LONDON AGAIN. 545 

the dead past and the living present, and by their in- 
congruity. Tliis church is a mere remnant — only 
one transept, I believe — of the old priory church of 
St. Mary Overy, which was built in the early part of 
the tliirteenth century, that golden age of ecclesias- 
tical architecture. It stands near the Southwark end 
of London Bridge. In it are some old monumental 
tombs and slabs, at which I looked with interest. 
Here is the tomb of John Gower, who atoned some- 
what for his poetry by contributing largely to the 
repairing of this beautiful church, in which his effigy, 
painted after nature, lies enshrined above his grave. 
Here is John Fletcher's grave, and Philip Massin- 
ger's ; and here, too, is the grave of one Edmund 
Shakespeare, an actor, who had a brother named Will- 
iam, also an actor ; and he, Mr. John Spedding says, 
wrought with John Fletcher on his play, " The Two 
Noble Kinsmen." I had stood a minute or two be- 
fore the stones that bore these names, and had moved 
away, and was musing in the gloom over the effigy 
of au unknown knight in chain armor and a cylin- 
drical helmet, which lay with crossed legs almost upon 
the very floor, when I was startled by the sharp whis- 
tle and the rumble of a railway train, which seemed 
almost to be directly overhead. And indeed the 
knight, whose good sword has been rust and whose 
body has been dust for nearly five hundred years, is 
lying very "convenient" to the station of the South- 
eastern Railway, on which, if he would but arise, he 
might start for Palestine, and be there in fewer days 
than it took him months to go, — if indeed he went. 
For the notion that the crossed legs of an effigy in- 
dicate a crusader is, I believe, abandoned, as one of 
those many bubble theories which self-deluding sci- 

35 



546 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

ence painfully blows up and admires, and then ex- 
plodes only by blowing a little longer. 

I went deliberately to Bolt Court for the sake of 
Dr. Johnson, who lived there in a house which is still 
standing. It is, I believe, the only memorial of him 
now existing. There is nothing at all uncommon 
about the place or the house ; and it is chiefly remark- 
able because of its unlikeness to what any one not 
familiar with old London would expect to see. When 
we read of Johnson's house in Bolt Court, although 
we do not think of the doctor as living in any state, 
we do not imagine a little place like a flagged yard, 
entered through a dark, narrow alley, and in which 
we should expect to see clothes drying on the lines. 
But such is Bolt Court, on which look a few houses 
with fronts that seem as if they ought to be their 
backs. That which was Dr. Johnson's is a respect- 
able brick building of three stories, in the plain, do- 
mestic style of the last century. Bolt Court is a rep- 
resentative place, — an example of those nooks and 
secluded recesses found in the towns all over Eng- 
land, and even in London, which are open to the 
public and frequented daily by many people, and 
which yet are so withdrawn from the public eye that 
by those who do not know of them, and where they 
are, their existence would never be suspected. 

Wapping is a neighborhood of which many persons 
know the name, but nothing more. It is preserved 
from decay by an odor of tar and pitch in the song, 
" Wapping Old Stairs," of which some of my readers 
may be glad to see the first stanza ; whereby they 
may remark how homely, and not only homely but 
tame and coarse and commonplace, are the folk-songs 
of Britain : — 



IN LONDON AGAIN. 547 

" Your Molly has never been false, she declares, 
Since last time we parted at Wapping Old Stairs, 
When I swore that I still would continue the same, 
And gave you the 'bacco box marked with my name. 
When I passed a whole fortnight between decks with you, 
Did I e'er give a kiss, Tom, to one of your crew ? 
To be useful and kind with my Thomas I stayed; 
For his trowsers I washed, and his grog, too, I made." 

Wapping, too, may be remembered as having afforded 
an important link in the chain of evidence against the 
notorious impostor who claimed the Tichborne estate. 
Immediately on his arrival at London he went to 
Wapping (which Roger Tichborne would never have 
done), and there he was recognized as a former resi- 
dent of the place. Wapping is a narrow strip of old 
London, which lies below the Tower and between 
London docks and the river. It is, as might be ex- 
pected, wholly occupied by mariners, or those who 
supply their wants. It is very damp and very dingy, 
and everybody in it seems to smell of oakum. The 
" stairs " mentioned in the song (which, by the way, 
is not very old, — only of the last century) are the 
steps by which people descended to the river and took 
boat in the days of wherries and London watermen, 
when the river was the principal highway between 
London and Westminster. There were Whitehall 
Stairs and many others, the names of which I do not 
now remember. Some of these stairs were of mar- 
ble, with an arched and pillared gateway. They have 
disappeared only within the last half century, and 
I believe one of them still remains. As I walked 
through Wapping, I saw on a dingy little card, in a 
dingy little window, " Soup Id. A good dinner 4:d. 
and 5d" Comfortable words ; but as I did not visit 
Wapping to dine I did not go in, and so saved my 
fourpence. And who knows but I might have been 



548 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

tempted into tlae extravagance of tlie extra penny ! 
As there was no longer a wherry to be had at Wap- 
ping Stairs, — which, if I could have had it, I should 
certainly have taken, — I took one of the small steam- 
ers at London Bridge, and came back that way. But 
I had some compensation. On the boat was a little 
band of minstrels, who were allowed to play for the 
few pence they could get. There was a fiddle, a flute, 
and a harp ; and the harpist, although his instrument 
was very primitive in structure, did not quite succeed 
in making me understand (what I have never been 
altogether able to understand) how it was that harp- 
playing could charm away Saul's melancholy. But 
their music was not very bad, and mingled not un- 
pleasantly with the plash of the boat, as we glided 
by the old wharves and the Thames Embankment. 
Euterpe had not watched carefully over these her 
poor votaries, who were sadly neglected and foi-lorn. 
Their clothes had plainly been worn out by prede- 
cessors in their occupancy, and had never fitted them ; 
and they were shiny and drawn into rucks. Their 
trousers were darned at the knees with thread not so 
exactly of the color of the cloth as a punctilious tailor 
might have desired. And yet their shoes, although 
in one case tied with twine, were well blackened, and 
they wore chimney-pot hats ; battered, indeed, and 
smoothed out and washed into a ghostly and sorrow- 
ful likeness to the real thing ; but still they were 
chimney-pots. I remarked that well-blackened shoes 
and a chimney-pot hat seemed to be regarded by 
English people in their condition of life as the first 
steps toward respectability in dress, — the sine qua 
nons of elegant costume. 

When the time had come for collecting contribu- 



IN LONDON AGAIN. " 549 

tions, and the flute was going round, hat in hand, I 
spoke to the violin, who did not resent my intrusion. 
I asked him if they did well on the boats. " Purty 
well, sir, thank 'e, — purty well, as things goes. But 
music is n't 'predated now as 't use t' be ; 'r else 
Hi shouldn't be 'ere," "No, indeed; you 're some- 
thing of a musician, I should say." " Somethink ! " 
— a pause of admiring consciousness. " Wy, sir. Hi 
'ave played in a band, — in horchesters. Hi 've played 
in gentlemen's 'ouses ; heven in Russell Square, wen 
they give their parties, — vile-in, flute, piannah," — 
I expected him to add cornet, sackbut, psaltery, and 
all kinds of music, but he disappointed me, and only 
said, " hanythink ; " and he accompanied the mention 
of each of his many accomplishments with a gentle 
and gracious wave of his bow. " Ah, yes, I see how 
it is ; and your friend, the flute-player there, I sup- 
pose, is a fair musician, too." " No p'ticler friend o' 
mine, sir. Business, business. No great musician, 
'ither, sir." Here he mused a moment. " Plays 
well enough, but no feeling," — a slight deprecatory 
shake of the head, — " no sentiment ; an' " — with a 
nod of conviction — " sentiment 's the thing in music, 
sir." The flute-player had made his round ; and just 
at the hither end of his circle a gentleman dropped a 
fourpence into his hat, which he then presented to a 
lady and a lad sitting next the gentleman, when sud- 
denly, with gracious flourish of the battered head 
covering, he said, politely, " Beg pawdon, sir, — beg 
pawdon. Same pahty, I see." 

We in the United States lose a great deal by hav- 
ing none but foreigners in positions like this. Our 
relations with those in the humbler walks of life are 
always with Germans, Irish, Italians, or, most rarely, 



550 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

Frencli. Our street musicians, for example, are in- 
variably Germans or Italians. And thus our sympa- 
thies are narrowed and limited, and our sight of life 
is all along one plane. One of the charms of Eng- 
land is that you are cheerfully served by Englishmen 
and Englishwomen ; that from morning to night you 
look only into English faces, and hear your own lan- 
guage spoken without a brogue or a break. 

I was not present as a guest at a wedding while I 
was in England. None of my acquaintances assumed 
the bonds while I was there ; and although I am sure 
that some of my fair friends would have willingly 
been married to the right man, to please me, none of 
them were, and therefore I did not see that show. 
But I am inclined to think that I lost very little. A 
wedding in itself has no attraction for a man ; and the 
difference between a wedding in England and one in 
" America" can be very slight among people of a like 
condition in life and of the same faith. However, I 
saw one marriage ceremony. It was at the church 
of St. Martin's-in-the-Fields. The church was open 
as I passed, and suspecting, from a little crowd of 
limp, draggled girls about, the door, what was going 
on, I went in. The parties were of the lower-middle 
class. It was just like a marriage in one of our 
churches, except that there was but one groomsman, 
or best man, and that there were none of those ridic- 
ulous " ushers," who have lately been added to the 
other painful impediments of the occasion. White 
wedding favors^jvere worn ; and except these trifling 
points I observed in the mere ceremony no peculiar- 
ity to distinguish the occasion from a similar one 
here among similar people. But the bride and the 
two bridesmaids were pale, thin young women, and 



IN LONDON AGAIN. 551 

the bridegroom was a little London " gent." In all 
the wedding party there was not one fine, blooming 
girl, nor one tall, well-made man. But there was 
one very fat old woman. They got into three car- 
riages at the door, and drove sadly off, as became 
the occasion, without the throwing of a single shoe, 
at which I was sompwhat disappointed. 

In this church there was a pew-opener, whose ap- 
pearance and whose performance of his duty were re- 
markable. His function — unknown to us — is com- 
monly committed in England to old women ; but here 
it was performed by a dwarfish man, the top of whose 
big, half-bald head was hardly so high as the sides 
of the pews. He would take intending worshipers 
up the aisle, the shining top of his head rising and 
falling gently along the line of the pews, open the 
pew-door, usher them in with a bow, and then shut 
the door with a flourish of his hand in the air, above 
his head, that suggested the idea that he was drown- 
ing, and about to disappear for the last time. And 
once I saw him bring down his hand, and, with an 
extra flourish, pass it deftly across his nose in the 
quality of what used to be called a muck-ender, until 
we English-blooded people gave it a French name. 
It was a very dexterous and somewhat astonishing 
performance. 

Funerals I saw, but also from the outside. And 
indeed these occasions are much more private in Eng- 
land than they are with us. There is rarely such 
a general attendance of friends and acquaintances 
as crowds our houses of mourning, and even our 
churches, with an elegantly dressed throng of sympa- 
thy and curiosity. There are the immediate family, 
half a dozen very intimate friends, the pall-bearers, 



552 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

the solicitor, perhaps the medical man Q finis eoronat 
ojnis)^ a few mourning coaches ; and that is all. The 
mourning coaches are not mere ordinarj? coaches oc- 
cupied by mourners ; and, indeed, they are frequently 
quite empty. They are large, portly vehicles, cov- 
ered with some black, dull-surfaced material like 
cloth, and are, in fact, coaches put into mourning. 
The harness and the horse-cloths are black, and 
coachman and footman are also in black, with weeds 
on their hats. At the death of any person of condi- 
tion the event is announced to the world at large by 
the display of a hatchment on the front of the house, 
generally between two of the windows on the first 
floor, — that is, the first floor above the ground floor, 
the second story. These hatchments are of white 
cloth, are about four feet square, and have a black 
border. Upon them are blazoned the armorial bear- 
ings of the deceased person. One morning, on one 
of the squares, I saw three houses with these funereal 
decorations, on one of which the lozenge-shaped shield 
and the absence of a crest told that it was a lady, 
probably the mistress of the house, who had departed. 
I cannot say that this fashion impressed me favor- 
ably. These hatchments seemed to be signs of a 
show going on within the house. They looked like 
unilluminated transparencies ; and suggested a brass 
band. 

Among my great pleasures at the Garrick Club 
was the sight of the large and very interesting col- 
lection of dramatic portraits that has accumulated 
there in the course of many years. Thither almost 
everything fine of this sort has gravitated lately, as 
if by the operation of natural law. There were por- 
traits of actors and actresses of the past and of the 



IN LONDON AGAIN. 553 

present, portraits in chai-acter and portraits out of 
character. There was the whole series of portraits 
in water-colors which were engraved for the fine edi- 
tion of " Bell's British Theatre." Among the old 
ones were two of Peg Woffington, in which she did 
not appear so beautiful as I had expected to find her. 
But that was Charles Reade's fault. I should not 
have been disappointed, had I not fallen in love with 
his heroine ; and yet there he stood quite unrepent- 
ant. But all Peg's possibilities, and some of her 
actualities, were written in her face. She must have 
been a most alluring creature. There, too, was a 
portrait of Mrs. Robinson as Rosalind. She is stand- 
ing, and is evidently in one of the forest scenes. Yet 
this is her costume : powdered hair, a voluminous high 
white cravat that swathes her whole neck, furs, and 
a blue surtout coat decorated with a bow. Never- 
theless she is charming ; for her figure is fine, so 
much of it as can be seen, and her face has some 
beauty and much character. Her audiences were 
accustomed to her costume, and therefore to them 
its incorrectness was of no account ; and it seemed to 
me as if, with that face and her art, she could make 
even us modern folk forget it. 

One day I wa,s attracted — I can hardly tell why, 
for the sight is not uncommon in London — by see- 
ing a very handsome coroneted carriage, in which sat 
a little, ugly, wizened, peevish, middle-aged woman, 
dressed richly but not well. The horses were mag- 
nificent ; the coachman would have done honor to a 
bishop's wig ; and the footman was as fine a young 
man as one could wish to see ; and I could not but 
think how absurd it was, and what a shame, that four 



554 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

such splendid animals as those should be put to the 
use of carrying about such an insignificant creature 
as their mistress. But indeed one does not have to 
cross the ocean for that absurdity ; we may see it al- 
most every day at home. 



CHAPTER XXIV. 

EANDOM EECOLLECTIONS. 

The recollections of my observation of England 
and its people which are recorded in the present chap- 
ter are very heterogeneous ; and it might perhaps 
have been well to distribute most of them under ap- 
propriate headings. But I do not profess to treat 
my subject either with unvarying method or exhaust- 
ively ; nor do I believe that anything would be gained 
by so doing. Those of my readers who can be 
thoughtful without being precise — and for such I 
write — will, I hope, not be repelled by the desultory 
character of these memories. 

Among the minor material traits of England, none 
seemed to me more peculiar and characteristic than 
the many by-ways there and short cuts of common 
use through places that appeared to be closed to the 
public, and with us would be so. There is one of 
these in London, near the Albany, which goes right 
through a great block of houses. It is made of 
planks, and has a hand-rail. It brings one out into a 
little lane where there are shops which, one would 
think, might as well, so far as buying and selling was 
concerned, have been in the dome of St. Paul's or the 
Queen's drawing-room. But the people knew their 
business, and the shops would not have been there 
if they had had no customers. I used this by-way 
frequently ; and one Thursday morning, when I was 



556 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

out early, in tlie midst of the Bulgarian horror time, 
I saw in the window of one of these little shops the 
" Punch " of the week. The cartoon was that one 
of Mr. John Tenniel's which shows Mr. Disraeli 
reclining in the wrappings of a bather, while Mr. 
Gladstone (who had then been making some very ef- 
fective and disturbing speeches) approaches him as a 
sable attendant with coffee, and asks, " How did you 
like your Turkish bath, sir ? " and the Hebrew prime 
minister replies, " Pretty well ; only you made it so 
confounded hot for me." I looked at it, and was 
turning away with a smile, when a young fellow in 
his shirt-sleeves, who was taking down the shutters 
of the next shop, caught my eye, and, smiling in turn, 
said, " Makes it rather hard for Dizzy, sir." We 
enjoyed the fun together for a passing moment, and 
then parted with " Good-morning." It was another 
pleasing manifestation of that freedom of intercourse 
and mutual good-feeling among strangers of all classes 
in England which I have mentioned before. In 
New York the man would have gone silently about 
his business, without volunteering the remark which 
opened my day and his with a bright, warm little 
ray of common pleasure. Indeed, a man so engaged 
in New York would hardly have been apt to appre- 
ciate and enjoy such a caricature, and would prob- 
ably have taken no notice of me. 

It needs hardly be said that in London I visited the 
South Kensington Museum more than once ; but 1 
shall not undertake the superfluous task of describing 
this wilderness of treasures of art and of science. I 
remember, however, a few objects there which are of 
very general interest. There I saw Galileo's tele- 
scope, by means of which he discovered, in the year 



RANDOM EECOLLECTIONS. 557 

1601, the moons of Jupiter and the spots on the sun. 
It is only about a yard long ; and the object-glass, 
now badly cracked, through which he saw these won- 
ders, is but two inches in diameter — smaller than 
those through which many a dandy nowadays ob- 
serves his star upon the stage. This instrument had 
been presented by Viviani to Leopold de Medici. 
There also was Newton's telescope, the first "re- 
flector " which he invented and made with his own 
hand in 1671. It is only about one foot long, and is 
worked on a ball-and-socket joint, of wood. Two 
ungainly machines, looking like a cross between an 
old-fashioned fire-engine and a modern kitchen 
range, were George Stephenson's locomotive engines, 
" Pufiing Billy " and " Rocket," which made it " vara 
bod for the coo," and the latter of which had its 
name because it could go at the rate of thirty miles 
an hour ! ^ 

Very interesting, too, were the old standard meas- 
ures of our forefathers, which are gathered together 
in a large case. There are the standard Winchester 
bushel, and the standard gallon of Henry VII.'s time, 
A. D. 1487 ; the gallon, quart, and pint of Queen 
Elizabeth's day, A. D. 1601; and the gallon, quart, 
and pint of William II.'s time, A. D. 1700. The 
measures, which are of copper, are remarkable for 
their size, the capacities of all of them being much 
greater than those of measures of the same name in 
these days, — certainly degenerate in this respect. 
It is remarkable that measures, unlike men, instead 

1 Some of my readers may not have heard how Stephenson, a north of 
England man, was asked by a peer, on a committee of inquiry into the 
feasibility of his proposed railways, if it would not be very bad if a cow 
got on the track before the engine. "Vara bod for the coo, my lord," 
was the prompt reply. 



558 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND "WITHIN. 

of growing larger as they grow older, diminisli stead- 
ily in size with advancing years. Those of William's 
time were larger than ours, but much smaller than 
those of Elizabeth's ; while hers were much smaller 
than those of Henry VII. 's. Largest of all was one 
that was dated fifty years earlier, A. D. 1437. It 
seemed that if we could go back far enough we 
should find a gallon, or certainly a bushel, as big as 
a bathing-tub. This diminution in size is a witness 
to the rapacity of traders, who gradually shrunk the 
measures by which they sold. And indeed has not 
our " bushel basket " dwindled away within the 
memory of living householders, until it now contains 
less than three pecks ? Established standards seem 
unable to resist the compressing force of greed. 

I have not been unready to speak of the manifold 
comforts of England, nor I believe half-liearted in 
doing so ; but I passed one morning of characteristic 
discomfort there which I never shall forget. On my 
second visit to Birmingham I was at the Queen's 
Hotel for one night only, and was going to leave town 
by the midday train. I awoke ailing and in pain, to 
find that a cold fog had settled upon the place. 
Looking from my bedroom window at nine o'clock, I 
might have supposed myself on the banks of New- 
foundland, but for the rays of a few street lamps 
faintly struggling through the watery gloom, across 
which, from time to time, flitted a phantom artisan 
or shop-girl on the way to work. It was only the 
24th of October ; but the cold went to my heart 
with a curdling chill that I had never felt before, 
even in a January northwester, with the mercury 
near zero. I dressed hastily, shuddering at the touch 
of cold water, and went to the coffee-room. It was as 



RANDOM EECOLLECTIONS. 559 

cheerless as the Mammoth Cave, — as damp, and al- 
most as dark. There I breakfasted in the depress- 
ing vicinity of seven muffin-eating, Times-reading, 
commercial Britons. Their appetites were disgust- 
ing ; their stolid calmness an offense. I took a chair 
by the hearth, where a chilly little fire was smoulder- 
ing in the biggest, blackest grate I ever saw. The 
heat from it was imperceptible eighteen inches off. 
Again I doubted if fire was ever hot in' England. I 
went down-stairs to pay my bill, and to make the 
brief preparations necessary just before departure. 
There was no parlor, no waiting-room, not even a 
chair ; and there I sat in a small passage-way, in the 
midst of disorderly heaps of luggage, on a cold, hard 
bench, with damp draughts pouring in upon me from 
all quarters. I think I was never more thoroughly 
wretched in my life than in this great hotel, the best 
in Birmingham ; and I then thought how differently 
such things were managed among us Yankees, where 
under such circumstances a degree of comfort is yet 
attainable by every one which in England is rarely to 
be had except by those who have their own private 
parlors a,nd their own servants. Comfort came to me 
in the shape of a Birmingham friend, who gave me 
that care and attention which I found Englishmen 
always ready to bestow ; and once on the railway the 
world soon brightened ; for in fifteen minutes we 
steamed out of the fog, and left murky misery be- 
hind us. I shall ever remember the kindness, not 
only of that friend, in whose house I should have 
been but for the upturning consequent upon repairs, 
and as tenderly cared for as the wife wrapped in 
morell's skin, but the kindness also of a good apothe- 
cary to whom I went to make a small purchase, and 



560 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

who, learning that I was a stranger in Birmingham 
and ill, had me at once up into his private parlor, and 
waited upon me, he and his servant, as if I had been 
left in his char^, with twopence, by the good Samar- 
itan ; for he refused all recompense except my thanks 
and the price of the trifle I had come for. This was 
the sort of surly Englishman that I found all over 
England. 

I was surprised at the free-thinking and the free- 
speaking which I met with among English clergy- 
men. Opinions as to the inspiration and the author- 
ity of the Bible, which not many years ago would 
have excited horror among all decent people, were 
expressed in private conversation by some of these 
gentlemen in orders with an astonishing absence of 
reserve. And the freedom of the thinking and of 
the speech seemed to me just in proportion to the in- 
telligence and the scholarship of the speaker. One 
of these reverend gentlemen (and in England the 
title " reverend " is strictly applicable only to clergy- 
men of the Established Church),' who was also a col- 
lege dOn and a scholar of repute, said to me, as we 
were discussing the value of the " Speaker's Commen- 
tary," " I wish that every one of those men [the emi- 
nent divines and church dignitaries engaged upon 
the work] was obliged to prefix to each book of the 
Pentateuch and the Prophets a declaration, upon his 
honor, of the time at which and the person by whom 
he believes it to have been written ; " and he empha- 
sized " his honor," as if the honor of an English 
gentleman was something far more trustworthy as a 
guarantee of good faith than the professional declara- 
tion even of an English clergyman. The one came 
from the man as an individual ; the other was merely 



EANDOM EECOLLECTIONS. 561 

giyen as the member of a hierarchy, in the way of 
" business." 

The truth seems to be that the thoughtful and 
scholarly divines of the English church, those whose 
acquirements and mental independence fit them to be 
critical, are sorely perplexed by their position. For 
the Church of England is a political institution so 
interwoven with the structure of English society that, 
should it be shaken, the whole social fabric might go 
to ruin. The feeling is prevalent (as I gathered, al- 
though I did not hear it uttered), and it is reasonable, 
that doing without bishops would be the first step to 
dispensing with dukes. And what would England 
be without dukes ? An Englishman might lead a 
godless life ; but could he lead a dukeless one ? And 
the dukes themselves and the minor nobles look for- 
ward with the gravest apprehension to the time when, 
church and state being severed, a respect for rank 
and privilege will be no part of the English religion. 

For it is not to be concealed that the English 
church is a gentlemanly institution. It not only 
teaches the lower classes deference to superiors, but 
its influence does much to breed that very admirable 
character, the English gentleman. Its teachings are 
wholly at variance with the spirit of social democ- 
racy. Its very catechism inculcates a content which 
is opposed to the restless and pushing tendencies of 
modern times. The catechumen is made to say, 
among other things, when asked what is his duty to 
his neighbor, " My duty to my neighbor is ... . 
to submit myself to all my governors, teachers, spir- 
itual pastors, and masters ; to order myself lowly and 
reverently to all my betters ; . . . . and to learn and 
labor truly to get mine own living and to do my duty 



562 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

in that state of life to which it shall please God to 
call me." But now it seems to be the accepted duty 
of every man of English blood, no matter on which 
side of the great ocean he may be, to get himself, with 
what speed he may, out of the state of life in which 
he is, into a better. The virtue of content is gone, 
and with it the grace of submission. 

I remember intuitions of this even in my boyhood 
as I repeated those words, and vainly strove to recon- 
cile them with the struggle for advancement which I 
saw going on around me, even among the most re- 
ligious people. And there was the old story in verse, 
which began, — 

" Honest John Tomkins, the hedger and ditcher, 
Although he was poor, did not want to be richer ' 

Honest John Tomkins was held up to me as the 
model of all the Christian virtues ; and yet I saw 
everybody around me, including my teachers and 
spiritual pastors and masters, striving by day and by 
night to be richer. And when we consider that dis- 
content is the mother of improvement, whether for 
the individual or the commonwealth, and that the 
betters of the man who is taught to order himself 
lowly and reverently to them became so because they 
or their ancestors were not satisfied with that state 
of life to which it had pleased God to call them, is it 
not plain that the religion which teaches content is 
doomed, and with it the whole system of governors 
and masters, spiritual and temporal ? But it will be 
a long time before this warfare is accomplished. Not 
easily nor quickly can a form of society be uptorn 
which is of such slow and sturdy growth as that of 
England, and whose roots, like those of some vast 
British oak, decayed and hollow at heart it may be, 



EANDOM RECOLLECTIONS. 563 

pierce the mould of centuries. There is mucli in 
England that is mere shell and seems mere sham ; 
but the shell was shaped from within by living sub- 
stance, and it hardened into form through the sun- 
shine and the tempests of hundreds of years ; and so 
it stands, and will yet stand long, although not for- 
ever. The very shams and surface shows of things in 
England are strong and stable. 

Yet the process of change is plainly perceptible 
even to the eye of a passing stranger. I saw evidence 
of it in the very dress of the farmer folk and peas- 
antry, in a morning's walk that I took with a Sussex 
squire on Sunday. We met many of these people 
on their way to and from church. The wives and 
daughters of the farmers wore silk gowns and bonnets 
with feathers, and carried parasols. I observed some 
incongruity between the apparel and the mien of 
those who wore it, and remarked upon it to my 
companion, an elderly man, who at once relieved 
himself by a mild and good-humored, but none the 
less earnest, denunciation of the absurdity. He re- 
membered, he said, when farmers' wives never thought 
of appearing on Sundays in any other dress than a red 
cloak and a close black bonnet, and then they looked 
respectable ; but now they come out dressed like fine 
ladies, — as they think. "And look at those young 
fellows," he said, " with their cut-aways and chimney- 
pots ! They 're positively ridiculous. See there ! " — 
pointing out an elderly man who wore a long brown 
linen garment and stout high-low shoes, which were 
somewhat incongruous with his shiny chimney-pot 
hat, — " that 's better. A smock frock, breeches, gait- 
ers, and a round hat is the proper Sunday costume of 
a Sussex peasant." And indeed I thought, although 



564 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

I did not say, that sucli a dress would be more be- 
coming and even more respectable than the carica- 
ture of his landlord's — or of his landlord's butler's 
— costume which in most cases he actually did pre- 
sent to the passiiig observer. 

But how, O Sussex squire, is ifc as to what the 
Sussex peasant himself thinks, and the Sussex peas- 
antess, in her monstrous manifestation of millinery ? 
If they feel in their inner hearts that they are ■ ' gen- 
teeler " and more elegant, and therefore in their own 
eyes more respectable, in that rampant rigging, what 
matter all your scoffs and gibes? And what can you 
expect but that they will wear it ? And what will 
you do to check this blossoming absurdity, unless you 
make instant and open war upon the liberty of the 
subject, and throw yourself in your gentleman's dress 
before the wheels of progress? The eternal fitness of 
things! But what is the eternal fitness of things, or 
even the fitness of eternal things, to the fitness of fine 
raiment, and to the consciousness of being in the fash- 
ion, and of being dressed, at least one day in tbe 
week, " like a lady " or a " gentleman " ! Verily, 
your notions as to correct costume and the eternal 
fitnesses smack of the church catechism and its state 
of life to which it has pleased, or may please, God to 
call us. 

In London, as I was walking through New Bond 
Street, I saw upon the door-post of a house a small 
signboard, hardly larger than a man's hand, on which 

was "E J — ■ — , Jurisconsult." It was a sad 

sight. It brought up a story which is significantly 
illustrative of a likeness and a difference in social po- 
lice between two peoples who are, or who have been 
until lately, the same in all the distinguishing charac- 



RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS. 565 

teristics of race, — the story of a man of such ability 
and such legal acquirement that he might reasonably 
have aspired to the highest honors attainable in his 
profession, — a member of Parliament ; a co-worker 
with Garibaldi ; a man whose reputation had crossed 
the broad Atlantic, and yet who, because of miscon- 
duct in regard to a trust reposed in him, was dis- 
barred. Coming to New York, he was received with 
facile and uninquiring welcome, and on motion of 
very distinguished members of the New York bar 
was admitted to practice in the courts of the State. 
When a cry of surprise went up from those who 
knew his history, and an effort was made to rectify 
the hasty error, it was found to be too late. The 
judges decided that, having been duly admitted to 
the bar, and having been guilt}'^ of no misconduct 
since his admission, his standing here was good, and 
he could not be disbarred. But the result was that 
the courts of New York were as effectually closed to 
him as those of London. He could not obtain the 
practice which a lawyer of his standing requires ; he 
returned to England to set up his little sign as a 
" jurisconsult." Never was a reputation more ut- 
terly wrecked and ruined ; never were fairer pros- 
pects more completely blasted. The moral tone of 
both bars and both communities was the same ; but 
in England there would not have been the thought- 
less precipitancy in his reception and admission which 
caused such a public scandal in the bar at New York. 
There would have been more caution, more reserve, 
more preliminary inquiry. 

It is a characteristic distinction that at the Inns of 
Court men are " called to the bar " after a certain 
probation, while in the United States they are, upon 



566 - ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

examination, " admitted to practice " in the courts. 
The former mode is a vohmtary act of grace by which 
the benchers ask a man to become one of their fra- 
ternity ; the latter is in the mature of the recognition 
of a right upon the fulfilment of certain conditions. 
A barrister's function in~'^!ngland is nominally of 
an honorary character, and his fee is an honorarium, 
which cannot be sued for at law as an attorney's costs 
may. Practically, however, a barrister's seiwices are 
paid for, as a matter of course, like any other serv- 
ices, and the professional incomes of many successful 
English barristers are very large. Law is the no- 
blest of all vocations in England. It takes even 
poor men into Parliament and makes them peers and 
lord chancellors. 

I did not have the good fortune of seeing any of 
the great courts in session, for my visit was in the 
long vacation ; but I saw a criminal cause tried in 
one of the minor courts in Liverpool, and was much 
interested in the proceedings. First of all, I was 
struck by the costume of the judge and of the bar- 
risters, whose wigs and gowns gave them an air of 
dignity and authority well suited to their functions 
and not without practical value. The wigs, indeed, 
did seem somewhat ridiculous, because of their ab- 
surd likeness and unlikeness to the natural covering 
of the head. The judge's wig was the least grotesque. 
It was quite like the large bob wig worn by all gen- 
tlemen in the latter part of the last century, — much 
like that, for example, represented in Dr. Johnson's 
portraits. But the barrister's wig is certainly the 
queerest covering that was ever put upon a human 
head. The gown gives dignity to the figure and 
grace to the action ; but I found it difficult to look 



EANDOM RECOLLECTIONS. 567 

at the wigs witliout laughing. Behind and at the 
sides there hang four little formal, isolated curls in 
double rows, so unlike anything human, and yet so 
plainly an imitation of curled and powdered human 
hair, that they would seem like caricature, if they 
did not, in their bald artificiality, pass all bounds of 
caricature. I spoke of their absurdity to a friend 
who was at the bar, and said that, while the gown 
seemed worthy of respect and admiration, I wondered 
why the ridiculous little wigs were not discarded. 
"Discard wigs ! " was his reply. " Why, we could n't 
get on without them. I could n't try a cause without 
my wig. I should feel as if I had no right to be in 
court ; as if the judge would be justified in taking no 
notice of me ; and as if the witnesses had me at their 
mercy, instead of me having them at mine. I should 
n't dare to cross-question a witness without m}^ wig." 
" In other words," I said, " your wig gives you an 
authoritative position which enables you to bamboozle 
a witness." " Why, yes," he answered, smiling, 
"that's pretty much it, if you choose to put it so." 
But to my trial. 

The case was one of obtaining goods, silk and 
satin, undei' false pretenses, and among the wit- 
nesses were women, who were connected in some way 
with the fraud. I was impressed by the quiet ease 
of the proceedings, by the gently exercised author- 
ity of the judge, and by the deference of the barris- 
ters to the bench and to each other. It was a minor 
court, as I have said ; but propriety and courtesy 
seemed to reign absolutely within its walls. One 
of the counsel, taking advantage of his wigged con- 
dition, began to press one of the female witnesses 
rather hard in regard to her personal relations to 



568 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

the principal culprit. After lie had asked a question 
or two with this intent, under which she had winced 
visibly, the judge leaned forward, and said, in a 

tone of quiet and friendly remonstrance, " Mr, , 

I think I would n't pursue that course of inquiry any 
further. It makes no difference • as to the nature of 
the act charged, and the witness has been very frank 
in her testimony." " Very well, your honor," was 
the reply, and the subject was dropped, and another 
line of inquiry was taken up. 

It seemed that this witness had kept some of the 
goods for a long time by her, not made up, and when 
she was told that she might leave the box the judge 
called her to him, and as she stood before the bench 
entered into a conversation with her, in the tone 
which a father might adopt toward a daughter who had 
erred ; in the course of which he asked her a few 
questions as to the reasons for her conduct, which 
seemed to bring out the truth of the whole matter 
more completely than the questioning and the cross- 
questioning of counsel. His manner was at once 
colloquial and authoritative, and while it commanded 
the woman's respectful deference, dismissed her fears, 
relieved her of her worry, and begat a confidence in 
his uprightness and impartiality. How the trial 
ended I do not know, for I could not remain until 
its close ; but I left the court-room feeling sure that 
essential justice would be done, and much impressed 
by this slight exhibition of the simplicity and dignity 
of the proceedings in British courts of law. 

Newspapers, advertisements, posters, an organized 
police force, and the telegraph have made the town- 
crier a figure of the past, long as unknown in Amer- 
ica as an old watchman or a ticket-porter. And yet 



KANDOM RECOLLECTIONS. 569 

I have been told by men wbo, although they have 
some gray in their beards, do not regard themselves 
as old, that they remember him standing at the 
corners of the streets in the smaller towns, ringing 
his great bell, and crying lost children- or other arti- 
cles more valuable, and making other announcements 
which are now made by machinery, social or other. 
I supposed that in England, however, he had disap- 
peared generations ago, and I should as soon have 
expected to find Dogberry, Verges, and that " most 
senseless and fit man " George Seacoal going about 
with their lanterns and halberts. But there he was. 
In Oxford I saw him, — a somewhat forlorn and wo- 
ful creature, sad of countenance and ruinous in rai- 
ment. He stood upon the curb-stone, and lifting up 
his voice he proclaimed lugubriously that certain ar- 
ticles would be sold by auction, and that the sale 
would commence — the very town-crier cannot say 
"beoin "even in England — at six o'clock. He was 
a witness to the fast hold which old customs have 
upon English society. Probably he was the last of 
his tribe and had a vested interest in his office, from 
which he will pass away without a successor. He 
was allowed to display the vacuity of his mouth at 
street corners to get wherewith to put into it at 
home, and to fill his belly with something better than 
the east jvind in the teeth of which he uttered his 
proclamation. No one but me paid the slightest 
attention to him. He might as well have done his 
crying in the desert of Sahara or on the top of Mount 
Ararat, His voice sounded to me like a faint echo 
of the speech of past ages ; and I thanked the poor 
fellow in my heart that he did his superfluous ofhce 
within my hearing. 



670 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

Some of these random recollections are in regard 
to points which should have been remarked upon in 
what I had to say as to manners and habits of life 
in England. Of these one is an absence of reserve 
in speech and action in regard to matters as to which 
a certain reticence is dictated almost by self-respect. 
Over the weaker and unlovelier points and the home- 
lier functions of our physical nature self-love throws 
a veil, which, by silent mutual consent, is never lifted, 
unless at the bidding of a great need. To say that I 
did not find this in England would be quite untrue ; 
but it is true that I found there enough disregard of 
it in a sufficient number of individuals to impress 
me very strongly. I shall refer only to two very 
mild manifestations of this unreserve. I was driv- 
ing with two ladies, one of whom was of rank and 
herself of very ancient lineage, — a woman intelli- 
gent, accomplished, kind-hearted, and indeed, it could 
hardly be denied, well bred ; and, moreover, she was 
not yet middle-aged. And yet, it being a morning 
drive, this lady did not hesitate to complete, then 
and there, her toilet as to ears and nose, in the face 
of the sun and in the eyes of her companions, in a 
manner which was not only conspicuous, but pick- 
uous ; and she did it in such a matter-of-course way, 
although so thoroughly, that I am inclined to think 
that half an hour afterwards she would not have 
remembered this perfecting of her personal graces 
in public. I never saw such a performance on the 
part of a New England or New York woman of even 
tolerable good-breeding or middling social position. 
My other example (and both are onl}' samples of a 
sort) was an even more public manifestation of the 
same unreserve. In a first-class railway carriage 



EANDOM RECOLLECTIONS. 5T1 

was a lady wlio evidently regarded herself as a very 
high and mighty personage. She, her young daugh- 
ter, and a nurse with a child in arms some six months 
old occupied one side of the carriage, which was full. 
At intervals of some fifteen minutes this lady, who 
was large and loud of voice, would make inquiries 
of the nurse, in very precise and well-articulated 
words, as to the natural history of that infant ; and 
the particular attention which she gave to this sub- 
ject went so far and was so very earnest that I 
began to look forward with some apprehension to 
what might be the consequences. Now, with an 
aversion to squeamishness and no respect for eu- 
phemism, I cannot but think that the feeling which 
would make such exhibitions as these, on the part 
of women of like condition, impossible in New Eng- 
land or New York is one which is not the mark of 
inferior sense, inferior civilization, or inferior man- 
ners, or even of the social tone of what is absurdly 
called a young country. 

I had dined at the house of a wealthy merchant, 
where our evening's entertainment had been most 
agreeable, and where all the evidences of intelligence 
and cultivation were notably apparent. Luxury was 
almost boundless ; and the dinner service was of 
plate. Soon after we joined the ladies in the draw- 
ing-room I was surprised to see my host sit himself 
down upon one end of a sofa, at the other end of 
which sat Kis pretty little wife, and stretching out 
his legs lay his feet in her lap. They were clothed 
indeed in gold-clocked silk stockings, and in the 
daintiest gold-buckled evening shoes ; and the lady 
showed herself neither loath nor surprised. I do not 
presume to pass an opinion on the propriety of thia 



572 " ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

demonstration of marital tenderness ; but I shall 
never forget it, because it was so strange to me. 

One little trait of manners and customs amazed me. 
The evidence of it was a bit of printed pasteboard 
which in plain terms was the business card of a hang- 
man, of which I took this copy: — ■ 



WILLIAM MARWOOD, 

EXECUTIONER, 
Church Lane, 
horncastle, lincolnshire. 



N. B. All orders promptly executed. 



I thought this about the most astounding piece of 
paper that I ever looked upon. As it seems a settled 
thing that some men must be hanged, there must of 
course be others to hang them ; and from the days 
of the saintly Trois Eschelles and the jocular Petit 
Andre there has been a succession of professional 
executioners in France, where the business ai) last 
became an inheritance, and the trick of it traditional 
in one family, like violin-making among the Amatis. 
But that hanging other men should become such a 
business as requires a business cai'cl, with the promise 
of dispatch in the execution of all orders, and that 
a man should thus openly seek such employment, 
would be incredible, were it not for this evidence.^ 

^ It occurred to me, of course, as it has occurred to others, that this card 
might possibly refer to the execution of writs in civil suits. But so 
thought not the intelligent English gentleman who showed it to me, and 
who, impressed by it as I was, would not part with it. Moreover, accord- 
ing to all evidence of literature and lexicography, executioner has had in 
England, for at least three hundred years, but one meaning, — a public 
headsman or hangman. 



RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS. 573 

English footmen look like curates in livery. If 1 
should say that the coachmen look like bishops on 
the box, it would be no compliment to the coach- 
men, who are, with rare exceptions, very fine men ; 
whereas English bishops are not as a bench remark- 
able for fine presence. As to dignity, what bishop, 
what archbishop, what cardinal, what Pope, could 
hope to equal the dignity of a first-rate English 
coachman in the discharge of his professional func- 
tions ! 

I had no opportunity of seeing the Queen, nor did 
I hear much said of her; and what little I did hear 
did not convey to me the impression that she was 
personally liked, even by those who knew her as well 
as subjects can know a queen. One of these said to 
me when I mentioned my not having seen her, " Oh, 
you could n't expect that. She rarely shows in 
public ; only on great occasions. And you would n't 
see much. She 's a shabb}'', dowdy woman; very 
close ; and haughty and austere with the younger 
members of her family." 

I heard interesting and amusing stories about the 
Queen and the royal family, which, although they 
were told by persons who should have been well 
informed, I shall not repeat. 1 shall not, however, 
conceal that in one that was told me about Canon 
Duckworth's affair, and which had all the marks of 
truth about it, the reverend gentleman appeared in 
every way to great advantage. So much, at least, I 
may say in regard to a matter already public. But 
the tone in which I heard the Queen and her family 
discussed caused me to puzzle myself with the ques- 
tion. What is loyalty in England nowadays ? Not 
ignorant of what the feeling is (for I was loyal to 



574 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

Charles I. when I read " Woodstock," and I don't 
envy the young reader who is not), I could find no 
evidence in English society of the existence of such a 
sentiment. Among the higher classes no one speaks 
with much respect of the family which has furnished 
the British throne with four Georges and a William, 
nor with personal regard or admiration of the pres- 
ent sovereign or of her children, although there 
seems to be no little ducking and deference to the 
Prince of Wales. I did, however, hear royalty 
spoken of with admiration, because of the dignity 
and picturesqueness which it, its functions, and its 
accompaniments bestow upon society. This, how- 
ever, is not loyalty ; nor was I able to discover any 
origin of that feeling which makes a theatre full of 
Britons thrill with a deep, sober, and genuine enthu- 
siasm when th'e royal box is occupied, and " God 
Save the Queen " is sung, other than the self-con- 
scious glorification of John Bull, and the contempla- 
tion of majesty made manifest in the flesh. When 
His Royal Highness entered his box, Mr. Jeames 
Yellowplush was " filled with hor." 

During the excitement about the Turkish atroci- 
ties England not only supped, like Macbeth, full 
with horrors, but breakfasted full with horrors, — 
Bulgarian horrors; for the newspapers seemed to 
contain little else. There were meetings and meet- 
ings upon the subject, and speeches and speeches. 
In the railway carriages, people, as they exchanged 
newspapers, talked of little else ; and few had even 
a word of excuse for the Turk. Now of this feeling 
I do not doubt the genuineness. According to my 
observation, there are no kindlier people than the 
English. Nor can it be fairly doubted that they are 



RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS. 575 

ready to strike a blow for the weak, and to use their 
power to enforce fair play. But I could not close 
my eyes to a strong under-current that was percepti- 
ble in all this, and much more apparent in private 
talk than in public discussion, — disgust as much at 
Turkish impecuniosity and bankruptcy as at Turkish 
cruelty. It was. very plain that the feeling, taken as 
a whole, was one of resentment at the atrocities of 
those no-interest-paying pagans. It was abominable 
to use British wealth and power to support a misera- 
ble lot of Moslems, who made war in such a ferocious 
manner, when they could n't pay their debts. I could 
not but think that if the interest on the Turkish 
bonds had been ready there would have been less of 
white heat in the glow of British indignation. But 
how many of us have a pure and single motive in our 
conduct, individual or collective ? Has there been a 
war or a " movement " that ended in a great gain to 
human freedom which had not selfish interest among 
its springs and causes ? Magna Charta itself will, 
not bear close investigation on this point, nor even 
our war for salvation of the Union and the extinc- 
tion of slavery. Of all great political struggles, that 
which was begun by a few English gentlemen m re- 
sistance to the tyranny of Charles I. seems purest in 
its origin ; and even that became debased by selfish- 
ness and greed and tyranny before it was ended. 

Even in this Turkish question, I could not but see, 
on the other hand, the elevating influence of the 
wideness and manifoldness of British interests. The 
scattering of British pounds, shillings, and pence all 
over the world makes the British people — those of 
them who think and who have interests beyond that 
of their daily bread — a people of wide sympathies 



576 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

and of varied and enriching anxieties. Their very 
solicitude for their profit and loss compels them to 
concern themselves in the affairs of the world at 
large. Their selfishness has become an element in 
their greatness. As Julius Caesar's success was in 
no small degree due to his enormous indebtedness, 
so, conversely, Great Britain has risen to imperial 
power because she has compelled the whole world to 
become her debtor. In recognizing this fact it is not 
necessary to admit the purity either of Caesar's mo- 
tives or of Britain's. 

The enrichment of the intellectual life of England 
by these causes is manifest in British journalism. 
The leading newspapers of London, and even of the 
provinces, place day by day before their readers dis- 
cussions which involve a knowledge of the world's 
affairs "from China to Peru." Look through half a 
dozen numbers of the " Saturday Review " and of 
the " Spectator," and see how the a.ffairs of Lidia, of 
-Afghanistan, of Egypt, in fact of all the countries 
C)f the world, are discussed as if they were but Brit- 
ish dependencies, which every man between Cape 
Wrath and Michael's Mount must needs know some- 
thing of and think about. The largeness and the 
complexity of these discussions are almost bewilder- 
ing. They make all other journalism seem thin and 
tame and narrow. And it is this vastness and variety 
of interest which in the last hundred years has raised 
the statesmanship of shop-keeping Britain to such a 
height that it is the noblest as well as the most ex- 
acting of all professions, and makes all other states- 
manship seem like shop-keeping. 



CHAPTER XXV. 

PHILISTTA. 

However closely the man of English race, but of 
New England birth and breeding, may acknowledge 
himself bound to his kinsmen of the motherland, and 
however much at home he may find himself among 
them, partly because of their common blood and 
speech, and of that sameness of mental tone and of 
social habits and political institutions (excepting the 
mere outside form given by monai'chy and aristoc- 
racy) which come of their common " Auglo-Saxon- 
ism," and partly because of the frankness and hearti- 
ness with which they welcome him, he is sensible in 
the society of England, even when he is most nearly 
drawn to it, of a subtle, all-pervading influence which 
makes him constantly conscious that, although he 
cannot feel and is not made to feel that he is a for- 
eigner, he is to a certain degree a stranger in the land 
of his fathers. This influence does not come from 
external things. Castles and cathedrals, peers and 
peasants, may be new to him, and he may look upon 
them with curious eyes ; but this is something which 
eyes cannot see. He is conscious of it mostly, if not 
only, in the intercourse of man with man. He feels 
it chiefly in the midst of his greatest social enjoyment. 
Seated in a room, perhaps at a table, where there is 
little, if anything, that is unlike what he has been 
more or less accustomed to from his childhood, sur- 

37 



578 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

rounded by men and women whose names are those 
of his own race, perhaps of his own familiar friends 
at home, — people whose costume, whose manners, 
and whose topics of discourse are essentially the same 
as those of the society in which he grew up, — he yet 
feels that there is an invisible something between 
them and him. It is not a barrier ; for it does not 
separate him from them : but it is an atmosphere 
through which he makes his approaches. It is the 
atmosphere of Philistinism. 

That what has been called Philistinism exists in 
England is no new discovery, as Mr. Matthew Ar- 
nold's readers know ; but it has been supposed, and 
indeed assumed and asserted, by him, if not by others, 
that it is to be found only in the middle classes, — 
that it is a distinctive quality of that immense divis- 
ion of English society which lies between the agri- 
cultural and artisan class, on the one side, and the 
nobility and gentry and the professional class, on the 
other. 

This theory of the phenomenon in question is plau- 
sible, and it is natural to a British observer who is 
himself in the latter division. But, according to my 
experience, it is erroneous. Philistinism pervades the 
whole society of Great Britain south of the Tweed. 
It is not found in equal proportions in all grades of 
that society, in some of which it is very much denser 
than it is in others. Like all heavy things, invisible 
although they may be, — like the heavier and more 
poisonous gases, for example, — its tendency its down- 
ward, and it sinks to the lower levels of societ}^, where 
it becomes almost palpable from the pressure of the 
superincumbent mass. From that plane upward it 
gradually diminishes in quantity, and becomes more 



PHILISTIA. 679 

delicate in quality as it passes from grade to grade, 
until, when it has reached the highest, it attains a 
tenuity which makes it almost imperceptible. But 
there it is, present to consciousness, although only as 
an influence, subtle, indefinable, almost indesci'ibable. 
I have said before that it is felt as something between 
the stranger and his kindred ; and yet I am not sure 
that the latter are not dimly conscious of it also, as 
a separating, isolating power among themselves. As 
to this I cannot speak, because, being one of the 
strangers, I cannot know. But it seemed to me, 
sometimes, as if each Briton carried about him, like 
a social planet, his own little atmosphere of Philis- 
tinism, which was not only the breath of his nostrils, 
but the protective ai'mor of his individuality, through 
which his nearest friends had to pierce in order to be 
in actual contact with the real man. 

This subtle, isolating moral and mental atmosphere, 
which I have called an influence, — but which might 
be better named an exfluence, for it radiates from 
within outward, — is a non-conductor of ideas. It is 
the unreadiness of the Saxon Athelstane developed 
into a social and intellectual power of inertness. The 
gross result of this unreadiness is Philistinism. The 
surgical operation which has been said to be required 
to get a joke into the head of a Scotchman (most un- 
justly, it would seem, of a people who have produced 
Robert BuAis, Walter Scott, and Thomas Carlyle) is 
far more needful to get a new idea, or even a fine 
idea, into the head.of a British Philistine who is per- 
fect of his kind. This being the case, Philistinism 
enshields and perpetuates itself. It is equally lasting 
and immovable. It stiffens the mental faculties, 
taking from them alertness and flexibility, and makes 



680 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

those who are wholly under its influence so set in 
their ways of thought and feeling that it is sometimes 
hard to say whether they are stable or stolid. 

A trait like this is strange indeed as characteristic 
of a people in which there is sucli a richness and va- 
riety of intellectual power ; a people who have pro- 
duced and are producing, in all departments of hu- 
man endeavor, work which in originality and in last- 
ing value equals, and in many respects surpasses, that 
which is produced by any other people ; a people to 
whom the world owes both Shakespeare and railways, 
inductive philosophy and the fanciful theory of evolu- 
tion ; who were once, if they are not now, the greatest 
discoverers, colonists, manufacturers, and traders in 
the world, and of whom it has been truly said that 
the sound of their drums follows the sun around the 
earth ; a people whose very language, because of its 
supreme adaptation to all human needs, promises to 
abolish the confusion of Babel and to make all man- 
kind again of one speech. Nor is the very literary 
activity of the British people less than phenomenal. 
The lists of new publications which appear weekly 
in the London "• Spectator " are an ever-recurring 
surprise. I have counted more than one hundred and 
forty in a single list, not the most numerous that I 
remember ; and, although these lists include new edi- 
tions, this fact only modifies their significance. More 
original works are published in London and Edin- 
burgh in a month than are published in all the 
United States in a year. But, notwithstanding this 
unmistakable sign of a vigorous intellectual activity, 
Philistinism exists in Old England, and to all intents 
and purposes does not exist in the New. 

Now it is remarkable that Philistinism is a phe- 



PHILISTIA. 581 

noraenon of comparatively late manifestation in Eng- 
land. It is a growth of the last limidrecl and fifty 
years. There is no trace of it in the Elizabethan 
era. In all the voluminous dramas of that time there 
is no sign that this quality then existed in the Eng- 
lishman. Shakespeare's plays, and Beaumont and 
Fletcher's, and Ben Jonson's, and Massinger's, and 
Heywood's, and Chapman's, and poor Dekker's are 
full of Englishmen of all conditions masquerading 
under Italian and French and Latin names ; but there 
is not a Philistine among them. On the contrary, 
the English mind of that time seems to have been 
distinguished for its quick apprehensiveness, its flex- 
ible adaptability, its eagerness, its thirst for new 
thought, its readiness to receive, to welcome, and to 
assimilate. In the " Merry Wives of Windsor," 
written, if not at Elizabeth's command, certainly to 
please the court circle, Shakespeare would surely have 
given us a Philistine, if he had known such a creat- 
ure. But Master Ford and Master Page, although 
middle-class men hardly within the pale of gentry, 
and who are not even small country squires, but 
townsmen of Windsor, are equally far from Philistin- 
ism and from snobbishness. Nor in Jonson's two best 
known plays, which were written professedly to pre- 
sent contemporary manners, is this humor embodied. 
Shallow and Silence, in "Henry IV.," make the near- 
est approach to it ; but even they are only a pair of 
senile rustic squires. 

English comedy of the Restoration is still void of 
this characteristic in any of its personages. But in 
the last century the Philistine element begins to 
appear. The dense-raincled middle-class man, rich, 
purse-proud, vulgar, incapable of apprehending any- 



582 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

thing beyond the range of his own personal experi- 
ence, comes upon the stage. He is the butt, it is 
true, of the courtier and of the traveled man ; never- 
theless, he is represented as the type of a large class, 
and as one who is becoming a power in the land, and 
who is recognized as one of the characteristic ele- 
ments of its society. He is conscious at once of his 
importance and of his social inferiority ; and he sub- 
mits, although with surliness, to the snubbing of his 
superiors, which sometimes takes a very active and 
aggressive shape. In Farquhar's " Constant Couple," 
Wildair beats Alderman Smugler before Lady Lure- 
well, and finally throws snuff into his eyes ; and the 
alderman raves and roars, but submits. English 
comedy of an eaidier period has no such scenes as 
this. In the Elizabethan drama noblemen and gen- 
tlemen hold themselves loftily, and sometimes talk of 
"greasy citizens ; " but they do not beat them nor 
throw snuff into their eyes in the presence of ladies. 
One reason of this is that the gentlemen of the earlier 
period are of higher quality and finer fibre than those 
of the later, and that in the later comedies the gen- 
tlemen themselves have become coarser under the 
velvet and ruder under the lace, which have wholly 
displaced the steel corselets and buff coats of their 
ancestors. The striking phenomenon is presented 
of the deterioration of a whole peojjle in the finer 
traits of social and intellectual character, of a loss of 
the grace and charm of true gentility, of a vulgariz- 
ing of the general tone of society, while society as a 
whole is advancing intellectually, as well as growing 
stronger and richer in all that tends to progress and 
civilization. The low^er class is coming into contact 
with the higher, and the higher has begun, in self- 



PHILISTIA. 583 

defense, to enter into conflict with the lower ; and in 
such a struggle the combatants are always sure to be- 
come tainted each with the other's coarser qualities. 

The eighteenth century, fruitful of good in so 
many important respects, was a period of decadence 
for England in all that made life beautiful and grace- 
ful. In the arts that embellish life the Englishman 
of that time, compared with his ancestor of the time 
of the Tudors, was a being of inferior grade. In lit- 
erature he had become conscious, weak, and prosaic ; 
and in fine art he had sunk to a lower level than he 
had touched till then since he had been civilized. 
The rude art work of Anglo-Saxon times shows more 
vigor and freedom and fancy than appears in that of 
thirty-guinea periwigs and Pope's Odyssey. The 
Englishman of the Hanoverian reigns could not even 
appreciate the work of his forefathers. The elegant 
eighteenth century did more to despoil and degrade 
the architecture of England than was effected by the 
iconoclastic fury of the Puritans of the Common- 
wealth. They destroyed, but they did not debase. 
In the last century, cathedrals and monuments and 
country houses, when they were not wholly neglected, 
were made hideous by tasteless alterations. The 
eighteenth century was in this respect a period of 
paint and putty. Evidence of this is visible on all 
sides, and testimony to it is plentiful. 

My first personal observation of this manifestation 
of Philistinism was at the villa of a friend, not far 
from London. He was in no way concerned in it 
except as its discoverer ; for he is not only a man of 
remarkable intelligence and comprehensiveness of 
mind, but also one of fine taste and of uncommon 
social attractiveness. The house was built in Queen 



584 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

Anne's tame, and some parts of it earlier. I remarked 
to him one clay npon the beauty of the wood of the 
solid mahogany door of the principal entrance. He, 
langhing, replied, "Yes ; but I had a hard time with 
that door. When I bought the house that door was 
green." " Green ! " " As green outside as that 
grass, and white inside. But it was blistered in 
spots, and I had it repainted. Still it would blister 
in warm weather ; and after two or three ti-ials I 
ordered all the paint scraped off down to the wood, 
that we might begin afresh. And what should we 
find, after removing three or four coats, but this 
]ioble old mahogany ! The paint was very old, and 
so hard that it almost turned the workmen's tools. 
The door had been painted again and again during 
the last century." I was amazed ; but I found other 
examples of the same vile taste, which was charac- 
teristic of the time when the term Gothic was used 
to imply rudeness. England at that time was full 
of noble monuments which were defaced in this ridic- 
ulous and deplorable way. In one of the old churches 
of London, I forget which one, there is an elaborately 
carved tomb of a John Spencer, erected A. D, 1609. 
It is mostly in a beautiful green-veined marble, but 
partly in variegated pale red and yellow marble 
equally beautiful. One of the church-wardens, who 
was kind enough to do the honors of the place for 
me, told me that this tomb as it stands now is the 
result of restoration ; that it was once all painted 
and gilded. The paint had been laid over this beau- 
tiful stone to the thickness of five eighths of an inch ! 
Since then I have found that British critics have re- 
main ^he same desecration. Mr. De Longueville 

Jones, in his description of a beautiful old country 



PHILISTIA. 585 

house in Herefordsliire, says, " There was the bache- 
lor's room, a nice little square apartment, about twice 
as high as it was broad, all paneled in oak, which 
some Goth of a squire had painted light blue ! " ^ 
And Mr. Jennings, in his delightful " Rambles among 
the Hills," just published, describing Charles Cot- 
ton's pew in the old church at Alstonfield, says, " It 
was elaborately carved, and of good old oak, bat had 
received a thick coat of green paint at the hands of 
some barbarian many years before." The taste 
which covered beautiful veined marble and carved 
oaken panels with paint was Philistine. The people 
who sculptured the marble and carved the oak were 
not Philistine. 

It is not strange that the houses and churches and 
other public buildings which were built in England 
during the time when such acts as this were regarded 
as improvements should be lacking in all the elements 
of beauty ; and they are so, as I have remarked be- 
fore. But they are not only ugly : there is about 
them an air of smug, yet heavy pretension, combined 
with respectability, which is peculiar to them among 
the productions of architecture. There were not 
wanting in England, even at the time of their con- 
cejjtion and building, men who could see their hid- 
eousness, — men who had not yet been swallowed 
up and borne off in the flood of Philistinism which 
was beginning to pour over the country. Of this 
perception these lines are a record. I remember see- 
ing them somewhere in the Dodsley poems. 

" Sure wretched Wren was taught by bungling Jones 
To murder mortar and disfigure stones." 

This coarse, dull, pretentious taste became more 

1 Essays and Papers (originally published in Blachvood), 1870, page 60. 



586 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

general and more firmly settled as years went on, 
until at tlie beginning of this centur}^ the art of Eng- 
land, especially the household art, had reached its 
lowest level since the days of Cerdic the Saxon. In 
design, the furniture and plate, the glass, the bind- 
ing of books, the house decoration, were utterly lack- 
ing in grace, in beauty of any kind. They were ex- 
pressive merely of dense insensibility to beauty, of 
the expenditure of money, and of a stolid respectabil- 
ity. We had plenty of this in "America,"" as those 
who recall the house-furnishing of our fathers' and 
grandfathers' houses must confess. It could not have 
been otherwise ; for our furniture then either came 
from England, or was made upon English models. 
And yet at this time Wedgwood was beginning his^ 
wonderful revolution in household pottery. But we 
all know the struggles and the trials through which 
he had to pass before he could elevate the taste of 
the day to the appreciation of his work, about which 
now books are written. 

The very " divinity " of the period (as religious 
literature is strangely called) was saturated with this 
influence. The "sound English divines " of the last 
century were all more or less Philistine. Reading 
their highly orthodox productions now is dreary work, 
not only because of the light which modern criticism 
has thrown upon their ignorance, but because of the 
expression of a smug satisfaction with their ignorance 
and of an admiration of it which pervade their pages. 
Doubtless they were honest, or thought that they 
were so ; but they seem to have been all the while 
striving to produce sound English divinity, to be re- 
spectable, to do honor to their cloth, to build up the 
Church of England, and to buttress it in its weak 



PHILISTIA. 587 

places, where it had crumbled with age, or had been 
undermined by the slow filtering of insidious thought. 
Into endeavors like this they were indeed led by the 
very constitution of that church, which was not a 
revelational nor even a traditional church, but one 
made for the needs of the English people. 

An acute and thoughtful writer, in the course of 
the discussion of another subject, has said of the 
Church of England : " By combined firmness and 
easiness of temper, by concessions and compromises, 
by unweariable good sense, a reformed church was 
brought into existence, — a manufacture, rather than 
a creation, — in which the average man might find 
average piety, average rationality, and an average 
amount of soothing appeal to the senses."^ But it 
was not until after many long years and many severe 
struggles that the Church of England was at last 
thus adapted to the religious wants of the average 
Englishman, who wished to be reasonably and re- 
spectably religious in a thoroughly English, sober, 
sensible, unexalted way. The mutual adaptation of 
the church and the people was not wholly accom- 
plished until the last century, when Philistinism took 
possession of England. It was the religious and po- 
litical sentimentalism of the Jacobites which, quite 
as much as their mere dynastic loyalty, made them 
ofi^ensive to the average Englishman of the eighteenth 
century, who cared much more for the comfortable 
decencies of his homespun national church than he 
did for the house of Hanover. And so it was that 
the sound English divines of that period shored up 
the English church, just as the men to please whom 
they labored shored up Temple Bar, that Philistine 

1 Professor Dowden, The Mind and Art of Shakspere, chapter i. 



588 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

structure, without beauty, and of use only as an ob- 
stacle to free movement. 

Now, according to tlie best evidence, this average 
Englishman, who rose into power in the last century, 
and has since then exerted a gradually growing influ- 
ence which has modified the social as well as the po- 
litical surface and structure of England, was not an 
elegant nor in any way a very admirable creature. 
Mr. Matthew Arnold had very distinguished prede- 
cessors in his perception that England has " a middle 
class vulgarized." Fielding, in "Joseph Andrews" 
(Book III. chapter iii.), writes of "the lower class 
of the gentry and the higher of the mercantile world, 
who are in reality the worst bred part of mankind." 
Addison, in the " Freeholder " (No. 22), has a pas- 
sage which shows that fox-hunting in his time was 
not the peculiar diversion, or rather employment, of 
a large part of the higher classes which it has since 
become, but was regarded as a mark of rudeness and 
rusticity. He describes his fox-hunting, small coun- 
try gentleman by a motto from Velleius Paterculus, 
which he translates, '^ impolitely educated, expressing 
himself in vulgar language, boisterous, eager at a 
fray, and over-hasty in taking up an opinion ; " and 
he makes him say that " he scarce ever knew a trav- 
eler in his life who had not forsook his principles 
and lost his hunting-seat," — by which it would seem 
that fox-hunting and Philistinism have advanced to- 
gether to the possession of England. 

To such testimony as this it would seem that there 
is no exception to be taken. And as this not well- 
bred man was somewhat slow of apprehension and 
was firmly fixed in his opinions, which yet he had 
rather found ready-made than formed for himself. 



PHILISTIA. 589 

find as liis ideal of life was a dull and decent respect- 
ability, and his reverence for money and for rank 
equal and great, he and his modern descendant or 
representative do indeed fulfill Heine's notion of the 
Philistine, as he saw the creature in Germany ; and 
the name has been well transferred to British soil. 
The Philistine is the man who is steeped in common- 
place. He is not necessarily ignorant, nor lacking in 
good sense or good feeling ; but his rule of action 
is precedent, and his ideal of life to do that which 
his little world will regard as proper ; and he is filled 
with a calm, unquestioning conceit of national supe- 
riority. 

A little touch of Philistinism in a lady decidedly 
not of the so-called Philistine class was amusing. She 
is of a family well and widely known for intellectual 
ability, and she herself maintains the rejoutation of 
her kindred. On my first visit at her house, she 
asked me how long I had been in England. I replied 
jocosely, " I have been in this blessed and beautiful 
island of yours just a fortnight to-day." " Oh," she 
exclaimed, " that shows what a big place you must 
have come from, — to call England an island ! " Her 
brother, with a little blush, suggested to her that a 
country surrounded by the sea is an island, however 
respectable and powerful it may be, and that Eng- 
land was somewhat famous in history and poetry as 
an island. To which her answer was, " I know, I 
know ! It's well enough for foreigners to say that." 
And indeed she was not without the support of the 
example of Walter Scott, who, in " Peveril of the 
Peak " (chapter xxix.), contrasts " the continent of 
Britain " with the Isle of Man. 

But the most amazing manifestation of Philistin- 



590 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

isiri that I have encountered came to me from Eng- 
land across the sea. A person whom I do not know 
and never saw, but who resides in one of the best 
neighborhoods of the West End of London, and 
whose letter indicates education and good breeding, 
wrote to me, inclosing a letter to be sent to a friend 
in New York, and in a postscript thoughtfully begged 
leave to inclose postage-stamps, and actually sent me 
half a dozen British stamps to ^aj postage in the 
United States ! It seemed the most natural thing in 
the world to this amiable Philistine that British 
stamps should carry a letter through any post-office 
to the ends of the earth. ^ 

One striking trait of British Philistinism is igno- 
rance of other countries, and chiefly ignorance of 
" America." To the Philistine this ignorance is his 
most cherished intellectual treasure. He guards it 
carefully, and plumes himself upon it. To enlarge 
and confirm it, he reads the travels of other Philis- 
tines in America, and in some cases visits " the States " 
himself, to return with a confusion of mind and per- 
version of fact upon the subject which is the occasion 
of solemn self-complacency, and which makes him 
for the remainder of his life an oracle upon " Ameri- 
can" affairs among his untraveled friends and neigh- 

1 The London Daily News, commenting upon this passage when it was 
first published, remarked that similar errors were not uncommon in 
"American correspondents," who often sent United States postage stamps 
to their British friends to "defray some trifling expense." But these 
stamps were specifically sent to pay the postage, in New York, of an in- 
closed letter. Moreover, the word "American" is very vague, and is 
here more than usually insufficient. It maj' mean any person who writes 
from "America," and who, even if an "American citizen," may be an 
Irish or a German peasant, or a British Philistine, or the son of one of 
these. I should require very good and very well sifted evidence to make 
iTie believe that any Yankee who lives outside of a lunatic asylum sent 
United States postage stamps to pay British postage. 



PHILISTIA. 691 

bors.i Let me frankly confess, however, that a like 
ignorance and confusion in regard to England among 
natives of other countries is sometimes courteously 
assumed by the Philistine. Some years before my 
visit to England, a pretty and sweet-mannered, al- 
though not very high-class, Englishwoman was tell- 
ing me, with the eyes and the voice of a dove, of 
something that had happened in Manchester ; and 
then, with gentle condescension, she added inquir- 
ingly, " You 'ave 'eard of Manchester ? " I said that 
I had, and she was satisfied. There are little courts 
and alleys in London, not unconnected with stables, 
which are called mews ; and I was kindly informed 
by one or two friends, as we passed some of them, 
that mews were places for the keeping of hawks in 
olden time. It was impossible even to laugh at in- 
struction so kindly given ; nor did I tell my good 
teachers that any " American " school-boy twelve 
years old, of their condition in life, knew that as well 
as they did. The elegant and very clever woman 
who recommended me to read " Kenil worth " before 
going to see the castle displayed this same sort of 
Philistinism. What need of telling her, either, that 
school-boys in "America " read " Kenilworth " ! 

There have been Philistines who were eminent in 
their quality ; men wiiose characters and habits of 
mind and life made them perfect, and even admira- 

1 A Yorkshire gentleman, intelligent, a university graduate, a barrister 
by profession, a man of the world, and one of the pleasantest companions 
I ever met, told me, with some complacency and an air of enterprise, that 
he meant to visit "the States " and to "go to Charleston and sail up the 
Mississippi to Chicago " ! He was puzzled when I told him that this was 
quite like going to Bristol and sailing up the Thames to Liverpool. And 
it was not quite like ; for the places and the river that he mentioned were 
more hundreds of miles from each other than those in my illustration were 
feus. 



592 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

ble, examples of their kind. In the last century two 
figures of superior position stand forth as Philistines 
of the highest attainments. They are George III. 
and Dr. Johnson. The king, who was the first true 
Briton of his family, showed his possession of this 
qualitj'^ in his dogged inapprehensiveness of his Par- 
liament, of his counselors, and of his American col- 
onies. The " great moralist and lexicographer " 
hardly passed a day without the manifestation of it 
either in his speech or in his conduct. He found in 
Fleet Street, not figuratively, but actually, the full 
tide of human existence. Of his Philistinism in con- 
duct, his behavior to his friend and benefactress on 
her marriage to Piozzi is a deplorable instance, he 
being in this case but the towering figure in a group 
of his kind ; and his preference of Nahum Tate's 
" King Lear," with its happy ending, by which vir- 
tue was rewarded and poetical justice done, is the 
most Philistine opinion recorded in literature. It is 
worthy of a critic in the gallery of Sadler's Wells. 
George HI. and Dr. Johnson are the very Gog and 
Magog of Philistinism. 

Nor in modern days are we without the supreme 
manifestation of this quality in high places. Lord 
Palmei'ston and Sir Alexander Cockburn, the late 
chief-justice of England, were Philistines of the first 
water. Lord Palmerston maintained his position so 
long, without exhibiting any remarkable qualities as 
a statesman, because in him the Philistinism of Eng- 
land found its representative and its highest expres- 
sion. Fielding's lower class of th@; gentry and higher 
class of the mercantile world saw with delight a no- 
bleman and accomplished man of society who in the 
tone of his mind reflected theirs. Lord Chief-Justice 



PHILISTIA. 593 

Cockburn, a man of mucb superior mind, a man of 
ability nearly first rate, of great energy, of higb cult- 
ure and varied accomplisbment, capable of vast ef- 
fort, wbicb he showed conspicuously on occasion of 
the Tichborne trial, attained his first great parlia- 
mentary success by supporting Lord Palmerston 
against Mr. Gladstone in the debate on the claims 
of Don Pacifico, the recognition of which is now seen 
to have been an egregious blunder. But it was a 
blunder committed for the glorification of Britons 
who never shall be slaves. His attitude and conduct 
on the Alabama commission showed that years and 
experience had merely deepened and hardened his 
Philistinism, until it could make him, a courteous 
gentleman, rude, conspicuously rude, in the face of 
the whole world, — him, an unright judge, elabo- 
rately unjust. These four eminent men, George III., 
Dr. Johnson, Lord Palmerston, and Chief-Justice 
Cockburn, stand in the annals of England as glorified 
types of the narrow, inflexible, inapprehensive, and 
I fear that, supported by the testimony of Fielding 
and Mr. Matthew Arnold; I must say vulgar sort of 
Englishman who was unheard of in England's annals 
before the reign of Queen Anne, and who I hope and 
believe will, by a radical change of heart, disappear 
from them in the reign of Queen Victoria. 

The difference between the society of England and 
that of America down to the present time, or perhaps 
I should say until within the last twent3^-five or thirty 
years, is due chiefly to what remained in the mother- 
land, — to certain immovable material things which 
the English colonists could not bring away, and cer- 
tain other movable immaterial things which they did 
not choose to bring away with them. The abandon- 

38 



694 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

ment of these, on the one hand, and the circumstances 
of the country to which he came, on the other, ef- 
fected the changes, really slight, which made the Eng- 
lishman of this country differ from his kinsmen who 
remained in the old home. But Philistinism was a 
new development of the English national character, 
which took place after the great English colonization 
of "Virginia" was completed. ^ In it the "Amer- 
ican " has not part nor lot. It is to-day the one 
great distinguishing difference between two societies 
of men of the same blood and speech, having the 
same laws and literature and religion, in two coun- 
tries. It is the only difference which goes down be- 
neath clothes and cuticle. British Englishmen as a 
mass are Philistine ; American Englishmen as a mass 
are not. In the American there is a nimble flexibi- 
lity of mind, an apprehensive adaptability, which re- 
minds us of the Englishman of the Elizabethan era. 
He is at once more logical and more imaginative 
than his British kinsman ; but at the same time less 
stable, less prudent, less sagacious. There are Phi- 
listines of a sort, in the United States, not a few of 
them ; but they wear their Philistinism with a differ- 
ence. 

That Philistinism is rare and mild in its manifes- 
tations among us, we Yankees may reasonably be 
glad ; but that the bird which broils upon our ugly 
coins should therefore plume himself and thank God 
in his heart that he is not as other brutes are, even as 
that poor British lion, is not quite so clear. For after 
all it must be confessed that the country under the 

1 What is now loosely called America was in Elizabeth's and James's 
reigns called Virginia; the name including the northern as well as the 
southern part of the country. 



PHILISTIA. 595 

protection of that roaring beast, although it is so en- 
tirely given over to the domination of this strange 
ism that it may truly be called Philistia, and al- 
though its people are often troubled at home and 
baffled abroad, is yet, on the whole, the happiest, and 
in many important respects the most admirable and 
respectable, in the world. John Bull himself con- 
fesses that he is a rude creature, who in some places 
welcomes a stranger by "'eaving arf a brick at 'im," 
and who beats his wife in most places ; and yet Eng- 
land is the country of all Europe in which human life 
is safest. Dreydorf, in his work on the Jesuits in 
the German Empire, published in 1872, shows with 
emphasis that while in Rome there is one murder fur 
750 inhabitants, in Naples one for 2750, in Spain one 
for 4113, in Austria one for 57,000, in Prussia one 
for 100,000, in England there is but one for 178,000. 
And although John Bull may beat his wife, he wrongs 
women in what is generally regarded as a more griev- 
ous way very little when we compare his sins with 
those of other men in that respect. The same work 
shows that while for 100 legitimate births there are 
in Rome 243 illegitimate, in Vienna 118, in Munich 
91, and in Pans 48, there is in London only^one. 
This makes the proportion of suffering and wrong of 
this kind as follows : England 1, France 12, Germany 
25, Austria 30, Italy 60. France is twelve times and 
Italy sixty times worse than England in this respect ! 
And England is of all countries in Europe, and t 
am inclined to think of all countries in the world, the 
one in which there is, if not the most freedom, the 
greatest degree of the best kind of freedom, — that 
which is enjoyed by him who respects the freedom 
and the rights of all other men. There is no other 



596 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

country in the world in which the people are so little 
at the mercy of great corporations and of powerful 
individuals, and only one, if there be one, in which 
the poor man is so sure of the protection of the law 
against the rich, and the rich man is equally sure of 
justice if his adversary be poor.^ 

What position in the world is so enviable as that 
of an English gentleman I What character, on the 
whole, more admirable than that of an English gen- 
tleman who is recognized among his fellows as worthy 
of his class ! Pie is not always quickly apprehensive 
and alert of mind ; he is sometimes over-confident ; 
he is often very illogical ; he blunders abroad and 
blunders at home ; but his want of logic does not al- 
w'ays show a want of sense. Sagacity is sometimes 
better than syllogism ; and he is wise in remedying 
real evils in an utterly illogical way. In his difficul- 
ties he generally wins through by stoutness of heart 
and steady nerve, and fixed purpose to do what he 

i Let whoever is inclined to carp at and resent the former of these as- 
sertions read and consider Mr. Lloyd's article in The Atlantic for March, 
1881, The Story of a Great Monopoly ; truly, it seems to me, the fullest of 
great import and of shameful record that was ever made public in this 
country. As to the latter : — in 1876 a poor laboring man named Edwards 
was i^^-arrears for rent fifteen shillings. His landlord sued him, got a dis- 
traint npon his goods, valued at ^10, and caused the whole to be seized 
and sold at auction, including a coverlet on a baby l3'ing in its cradle. 
The proceeds of the sale were £^ 17s. 6d., and when the poor man's wife, 
bolder, pei'haps because more distressed for her children's sake, than her 
husband, demanded that the surplus should be handed back to her, she 
was abused and driven away. Edwards thereupon sued the landlord, who 
put in a bill for auctioneer's fees, seven daj-s' possession, toll, two bailiffs, 
and "liquor " supplied to these worthy leeches of the law. The county 
court decided that the distraint had been " oppressively and improperly 
conducted," and gave Edwards a judgment for £6 6s., with costs, the 
landlord to be imprisoned if the amount was not paid within one week. 
England, monarchical in its government and aristocratic in its society, has 
been since 1645 a commonwealth ; and English law is no respecter of per- 
sons. 



PHILISTIA. 697 

tliinks is his duty. He has a singular capacity of 
suffering when he sees tliat he must suffer, and a 
grand ability to die in silence when he sees that he 
ought to do so. Other men are as brave as he, some 
perhaps more dashing and brilliant in feats of arms, 
— Frenchmen, Germans, even Spaniards and Portu- 
guese ; but the calm, steady beat of the English heart 
in the face of danger is like the swing of a pendulum 
that obeys only the one great law of the universe. 
English armies have been beaten ; but they have 
rarely, if ever, been routed. They have left their 
lost fields with ranks as nearly unbroken and with as 
firm a step as the most exacting soldier could expect 
or hope for in his overpowered and retreating com- 
rades. At Fontenoy and at Corunna there was no 
panic. And at Balaklava, when " it was not war," 
it was at least cool, unquestioning obedience to or- 
ders, in the retreat as well as in the charge. At what 
siglit did the world ever look with more reverence — 
an admiration tempered with tears — than at the 
" Birkenhead," with her men obeying the call to 
quarters and standing at attention as she took them 
down in steady ranks into the depths, every man of 
them, like an imperial Ccesar, dying with decency ! 

If Englishmen are a little loftily conscious of Eng- 
lish prowess and English stability, they have the 
right to be so, — a right given to them by such fields 
(not to mention others of minor fame) as Crecy, 
where Edward III.'s men were less in number than 
one to two of their opponents ; and Agincourt, where 
Henry V.'s were not one to four ; and Plassy, where 
Olive's one thousand Englishmen had such heart to 
spare to their two thousand auxiliaries that together 
they put more than ten times their number to flight, 



698 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

although the enemy had almost as many cannon as 
the little British force had field-officers. Andrew 
Borde, a Sussex physician, who had seen the world of 
his day as few men then saw it, published in 1542 a 
book called " The Boke of the Introduction of Knowl- 
edge," in which there are rude wood-cuts represent- 
ing men of various nations, each of which has a 
motto or saying attached to it. That uttered by the 
Englishman is, — 

"I do feare no man, all men fearyth me; 
I overcome my adversaries by land and sea." 

Boastful, indeed, and therein not uncharacteristic ; 
but true, and therein also characteristic. Borde says, 
" I think if all the world were set agaynst England 
it might never be conquered, they being trew within 
themselfe." We know that this opinion of our fore- 
fathers and our kinsmen has been sustained by the 
event. But from that time to the present, of what 
other people in the world, who are not of English 
race, could this be ti'uly said ? 

The bearing of all this upon our present subject is 
that the rise and the progress of Philistinism in Eng- 
land were strictly contemporaneous with her assump- 
tion of her position as a power of the first class in 
the world, in wealth, in strength, in empire, in glory. 
India was won for Britain by her middle classes ; and 
Philistinism marched steadily forward from the vic- 
tories of Marlboi'ough to those of Wellington. 

And, moreover, see the attitude of England now, 
and of Englishmen, towards the agitators and revo- 
lutionists — agitators and revolutionists, however just 
may be their cause or great their provocation — who 
are threatening and striving to dismember the em- 
pire. Englishmen as a race do not like Irishmen as a 



PHILISTIA. 699 

race, on either side of the ocean ; and Irishmen have 
now been doing all that deeds and words could do to 
inflame English hatred against them. But England 
has stood, although indignant, considerate, not with- 
out sympathy, and reluctant to strike. Tlie very lead- 
ers of what is legal treason, and who are on trial for 
their crime, take their seats in Parliament, with no 
man to molest them or make them afraid. Mr. Par- 
nell, indicted, ti-aitor in Dublin, sits as a member of 
Parliament in Westminster, and has all the privileges 
and immunities of his representative function. He 
is as safe in the House of Commons, and, what is 
more, as safe in the streets of London, as if he were 
John Bright or Mr. Gladstone. He and his colleagues 
are heard patiently until they deliberately undertake 
to obstruct the action of Parliament, and there is 
not a word uttered in speech or in print to excite 
personal ill-will against them. This is a noble atti- 
tude, and it is one peculiarly English. 

It would be well for us to admire what is worthy 
of admiration in such a people, rather than to carp 
at their errors and their failings, — to emulate their 
sterling virtues, and to find in our share of their an- 
cient fame and grandeur an occasion of honorable 
and elevating pride. England has behaved to us too 
often rather as a mother-in-law than as a mother-in- 
blood, and some Englishmen have an unhappy mas- 
tery of the art of being personally offensive ; but 
that is a poor and petty spirit which cannot see and 
admire greatness because it has received slight. And 
what wrong has England ever done us since we were 
an independent nation? She has scoffed and sneered 
and been insolent ; and, as Plutarch says, men will 
forgive injurious deeds sooner than offensive words. 



600 ENGLAND, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

But after all, is it not better to forgive even offensive 
words when they Avere spoken less in malice than in 
overweening conceit and utter ignorance ? England 
is the cradle and the home of Philistinism, and never 
has the Philistine temperament of her dominant, al- 
though not her ruling, class been more manifest than 
in her attitude, until lately, towards her younger 
brother in " America." It has been quite like that 
of Mr. Anthony TroUope's Marquis of Brotherton to- 
wards his younger brother. And this went on all the 
while that we were, to all intents and purposes, but 
another English nation. Now, when we are becoming 
year by year more and more a mixed people, she is 
changing her tone, because we have "fought a big war 
and are paying a big debt. Alas, that it is so ! But 
we at least can afford to be good-natured, and to smile, 
not merely in rueful scorn, as we take the hand that 
would have been so much more welcome and so much 
more honored if it had been offered when we were 
weaker and poorer. 

Yet we may trust England in this matter. It is 
not that she is snobbish, and is ducking to us merely 
because she has found out that we are strong and 
rich ; it is that our war and its consequences have 
partly opened her Philistine eyes, have taught her 
something, although yet a very little, about " Amer- 
ica." Her ignorance was ridiculous, but it is not un- 
pardonable, nor quite incomprehensible. After living 
a while in England, one begins to discover how it is 
that it is so much farther from London to New York 
than it is from New York to London. Lie who can- 
not see that must be very dull or very ignorant, — 
himself a Philistine, indeed. 

England is not perfect, for it is upon the earth, 



PHILISTIA. 601 

and it is peopled by human beings ; but I do not 
envy the man who, being able to earn enough to get 
bread and cheese and beer, a whole coat, and a tight 
roof over his head, — chiefest need under England's 
sky, — cannot be happy there. He who is of a com- 
plexion to be surly because another man is called my 
Lord, while he is plain Mister, — she who frets be- 
cause another woman may go to court, while she may 
only queen it at home, — can easily find occasion 
there to grumble or to pine. They whose chief aim 
is to rise in life do find there, not barriers indeed, 
but obstacles ; to overcome which they must have 
can and tvill largely in their composition, as it is 
thought that they should have who rise. But they 
who are sufiicient unto themselves, and who can take 
what life and the world offer with little concern as to 
what others may be thinking about them, may find , 
in England the means and conditions of a sound and 
solid happiness.' I never met a well-educated, well- 
bred Yankee, who had lived in England long enough 
to become familiar with her people, who found him- 
self at all out of place there, or who was dissatisfied 
with any of his surroundings. As to Philistinism, the 
chief mark of distinction between the people of the 
two countries, one becomes used even to that, and 
finally forgets it. I confess, as I bid farewell to thee, 
Philistia, dear motherland, that while I was within 
thy borders I, a Yankee of the Yankees, felt at times 
as if I were a Philistine of the Philistines. 



THE END 









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